The Journal
by BadMomma
Summary: *COMPLETE* 17 Years after Endless Waltz a young girl tries to come to grips with her family's past and their possible future. **Reference to multile het couples, no action.
1. Chapter 1

THE JOURNAL  Chapter 1 By: BadMomma 

Notes at the bottom.

_thoughts_

Journal Entry: 11.10.AC214

Here is where I begin to attempt to make sense of things.  I'm following the example of my girlfriends – and my mother – and putting my thoughts in writing, they say it gives you perspective as long as you just let it flow.  Maybe, when I reread my random thoughts, they'll be easier to sort out.  Maybe I'll find answers to the questions I have not yet formed.  I'm not what you would call a sad or troubled teenager, I just need to figure some things out.

My birthday is in eight days, the day itself is usually very happy, I have family and friends that truly care about me and it's a wonderful feeling.  But now in the days before, I question my life, my expectations, my past and my future.  I guess that's normal for a 15-year old, but given who my parents are, I am far from normal. My mom wanted to throw me a big party, just like the one she had for her 15th birthday, but I'm not really up for it. In that sense I guess I'm more like him than I am like her. Instead I've asked for a trip; I need to see Duo, "Uncle Duo".  Not that he really is my uncle, he's a friend, sometimes more like a foster father to me, it is partly because of him that I know so much about my father.  He seems to have been my father's best friend.  

We made the final arrangements just last week, Duo will be coming to earth for my birthday, and then I'll go back with him to L2. It's been so long since I've been there, since the summer before last that I spent a month with them.  Hilde had just had the baby and I wanted to help her with the other kids.  I also wanted information.  Duo had talked to me about my father;  the way he teased him all the time, the work they had done together, the way he looked at my mom, the love he had for me. . . But it hadn't been enough.  I'd needed to know more.  Needed to know what other people saw in him, what he had done, how he behaved.  Mostly, I had only my mom's words to go by.

I had discovered my mom's journals on New Year's eve in a corner of the library, stacked under and behind old papers and reports. At first I was just being nosy, I figured I'd find something in there that I could use to blackmail her when she lectured me about the stupid things I did.  What I found had a profound effect on me. Apparently she had started keeping a journal shortly before they met, I've never seen those early journals because they weren't with the others. The oldest one I've found is from the end of AC197.  She was still the Vice Foreign Minister and it took up a great deal of her time.  She traveled extensively between the colonies and the earth because even after a year, peace was still tenuous. At the time, my father worked for the Preventers, though she rarely saw him. But the entries for the dates they did meet were full of passion and pain.  She loved him so dearly and I think he must have loved her too, but he had never said as much to her and it weighed on heart. They didn't really have a relationship at that point, not a real one.  A stolen kiss here or there, but never more than that; he always seemed to drift in and out of her life. She accepted it, because as she put it 'that was who he was'. But she had wondered how he always managed to be there just in time to protect her from some disaster or another, to catch her whenever she was about to fall. Knowing now how he managed it, I find it hard to believe she could have been so oblivious!  I guess you could say it was his job to monitor her.  Staying out of sight and out of the spotlight, he watched and protected her, only revealing himself when it was absolutely necessary. Duo says he always teased my father about sneaking around on roof tops and in trees, watching her from balconies.  He took quite a few beatings for jokingly calling my father a pervert, a peeping-tom and a sick-o, I would have loved to see that. I would still love to see it. I would love to see him.  Where are you?

Journal Entry: 11.12.AC214

"She looks so much like her father!" "Their resemblance is uncanny." "Thank heaven she's doesn't act like him." 

My father . . . Hushed words that were not meant to be heard by me, by my mother, by the others who still think about him and still hold a place for him in their hearts.  Statements made by people who never really knew him.  It is he who has driven me to question, he who has unknowingly shaped me with his absence. I never really knew him.  And mom, she doesn't talk about him much, it's not like she won't if I ask, but the conversations are always too brief and too painful for her. I don't want to make her suffer. After 13 years without him, she still loves him dearly. She's never married, never even seriously dated anyone that I can tell. And then there's me. I am a constant reminder of him, one that must sometimes be overwhelming. Physically, I'm so much like him, they say.  Maybe it's the way I speak or the tone of my voice or the way I carry myself; maybe it's the color of my hair – it's certainly not the cut, maybe it's the look in my eyes, his eyes.  Everyone always mentions his eyes. They must have been something to behold in person, I can't remember because I was too young.  I look at myself in the mirror and I can't see what the big deal is.  Blue eyes, just big dark blue eyes.  His eyes . . . Mom wrote about them constantly in her journals, how they were the windows to his soul. How they captured her and pulled her in, they mesmerized her. I think it was the way he looked at her that must have sustained her hopes.  Hopes that one day she would be able to show him just how much she loved him. And once they did finally come together, those same eyes must have helped her survive what would follow.  Not from him of course, but from all the others.  I guess they must have held an incredible power.  

Milliardo apparently did not approve, she wrote sadly about the arguments she had with her brother about him.  My uncle did not believe that the relationship could come to any good.  He and my father were constantly at odds, though Milliardo never interfered directly, he loved mom very much and only wanted her to be happy and safe. He told mom that he believed that had my father's heart been in the right place, he would have asked her to marry him.  People would talk, people were talking, the relationship would be her undoing. She was a public figure after all, the Vice Foreign Minister, the heir to a monarchy.  But she would not be swayed; not by my uncle, not by her public relations staff and most certainly not by public opinion.  She loved him, he loved her, they were together and that was all that mattered. She never asked him to marry her either, she didn't need it.  They had pledged their love to each other and that was all she required. I think sometimes that she may even have enjoyed all the publicity and the rumors a bit, she wrote about how they laughed at it in private.  How my father had jokingly offered to 'eliminate' the offenders.  He even once offered (apparently in a round-about way) to 'make it official', but she declined.  If they ever married it would be because the two of them had decided on it, not because the tabloid reporters dubbed them 'the Princess and the consort', 'Mr. War and Ms. Peace', 'the royal bed-warmer' or any number of other silly things.  Funny, I would have never thought her to be so bold. What power he must have had! Their friends understood and supported them in their decision, not everyone was meant to marry.  As it turns out, they never would.  

I resented that for a while, why hadn't they married?  They'd made me a bastard. I don't know if parents actually teach their children to use the word, teach them what it means, or if there's some glossary for cruel children out there somewhere;  but my family's status in the government and my obvious wealth did not make me immune.  At the age of nine, it hurts to be reminded constantly that your father has run off and left you behind. To be told that he mustn't care enough about us to stick around and make us a "real" family was heart wrenching to say the least.  By then mom had stepped back from her public work, she'd long ago resigned from the post of Vice Foreign Minister and had taken a position on the Diplomatic Advisory Council.  She claimed that she had completed the work she set out to accomplish, but I think she did it for me.  My father was gone and he wouldn't be coming back, she had to provide me the most stable life she could.  She herself had been through so many unpleasant upheavals and I don't think she wanted that for me.  Whenever I came home upset at the taunts of my classmates, she would take out our family pictures and vids and she'd remind me how much my father loved me.  She told me stories about how he'd cradle me in his arms just after I was born and hum to me when he thought no one was listening. She spoke of a man that was dedicated, gentle and kind, but ferociously protective;  I didn't understand back then why her voice always quivered as she told me those stories.  I understand now.

Journal Entry: 11.13.AC214

I was down by the lake today, how peaceful and beautiful it is.  I guess I'm lucky that we still live on the grounds of the Peacecraft Estate. The grounds are large and while Milliardo and Lucrezia live here too with their children, there's always somewhere to get away to.  Living here with my uncle and his wife, whom he still calls Noin, sometimes makes for strange happenings, especially when the Preventers gather to have "meetings".  What a joke!  They were all here today, at least the ones stationed on earth: Sally, Wufei and 'Lady'.  Lady, strange now that I think of it, I've never heard anyone call her by her first name. Sally and Wufei, what a pair.  They're not together anymore, it just didn't work out between them, but they are still the best of friends.  Lady stayed only a little while, just long enough to deal with the official reason for their gathering, sometimes I think that being with all these people brings back too many memories for her.  After she left, Sally and Wufei stayed to hang out with Milliardo, Lucrezia, mom and me.  We ate and drank, took vids of the kids and in general were having a great time until the sun started to set.  I'm not sure what it is about the sun setting over the lake, that makes everyone so nostalgic. It started with what I thought was a cute little story about my aunt and uncle before they had gotten married, then a story about some wild party a few years ago.  And then it happened, someone mentioned his name.  Sally tried to change the conversation quickly, Lucrezia nervously joined in the subterfuge, but they were drowning quickly.  Wufei, in typical Wufei fashion, just grunted and walked away.  Milliardo stood up, shot a quick glance at mom and gave his wife a gentle squeeze on the shoulder before taking the children inside with the excuse that it was time to begin getting them ready for bed. My mom just sighed a little sigh and put on a brave face. I wanted so badly for someone to keep talking about him, but they didn't. Sally and Lucrezia looked like they wanted to say something but couldn't. I decided to leave. I was not angry, just feeling a bit needy. Need. I needed to see his face, needed to be reminded of how happy that name once made us all.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw them huddle together as I reached the house, I think mom was crying.

I've seen the vids from when I was small, no more than a year or year and a half old; laughing, playing at the lake, celebrating weddings, holidays and special occasions with friends. There are a few still photos of us as a family, happy, young, carefree.  Seemingly carefree. They were both so beautiful, they loved each other and they loved me.  I know it, I can see it in their faces.  Mom is still beautiful, a little older, perhaps a little sadder;  but her sadness is now part of her beauty, and I don't think she would trade any of it for a single moment of joy now. 

. . . I'm sorry, I can't come back.  Forgive me . . . 

My father left one day and never returned.  They knew he was leaving, he had to every so often because it was part of his job.  In the 4 or so years they had been together, my father occasionally had business that took him away for a few months at a time, but mom always knew when he'd be back.  Two weeks from the date of the final report, almost to the day I've been told.  Quatre once casually referred to it as the "cleansing period".  He needed this time to regain his focus, to wash away whatever sins he had just committed.  To become again the man he was to us, the one my mom had grown to love more than life itself.  I don't know the details of the jobs he did, but I know that they weren't pretty.  He was part of the Preventers, an agency of the government that investigated and "corrected" problems in and between the colonies and the earth.  He occasionally worked with his old buddies, but more often than not he was on his own.  That was the way he liked it, only himself to rely on.  

Duo will be here in three days.  He's scheduled to arrive a couple of days before my birthday to meet with Lady,  she's the director of the Preventers Investigative Unit.  I want so badly to talk to him.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to convince him to get a hold of Trowa again while I'm on L2.  Trowa He used to come to earth whenever he could, back when I was little, before my father left.  It wasn't until the summer before last that I actually remember meeting him.  The circus, which he had used as cover during the war and was now the manager of, had come to L2 while I was there. Of course he and Duo couldn't pass up the opportunity to get together, though I don't think I've ever met two more different people in my life. Duo and I took the kids to the circus and Hilde stayed home with the baby. Trowa took us backstage and had the clowns keep the kids busy after the show while we went to his trailer to talk.  It was true what everyone said about him, he hardly spoke. No more than 5 or 6-word sentences usually, which of course I thought might have been because Duo never stops talking. At first he seemed very serious, what little he did say always seemed to carry such weight.  Words of wisdom, even if he was just fending off one of Duo's verbal parries.  Eventually they began catching up on old times. Duo showed him pictures of the baby and caught him up on the happenings with the Preventers.  I got the feeling that while Trowa didn't actually work for them, they had dealings, maybe just providing information.  Trowa's sister had apparently married and left the circus to be with her husband, they now had a little girl and were living happily on L4;  he had already been managing the circus for about 3 years and while he was alone, he claimed to be content. I guess.  I watched him talking and could see that same sadness that I had seen in all their eyes. He usually kept it hidden, but it would appear every once in a while.  We all talked for a little while longer and before leaving Duo made him promise to come by the next day for dinner, that way he could see Hilde and the baby.

The next night after dinner, Hilde and Duo were putting the kids to bed and Trowa and I agreed to clean up in the kitchen.  We worked quietly for a few minutes before he broke the silence.  "What do you want to know?" was all he said. How could he have known, we hadn't even mentioned my father. But that was OK,  I hadn't found a way to broach the subject, and there was the door, wide open and waiting for me to cross the threshold.  We finished in the kitchen and went outside. He told me about the times he and my father had worked together during the wars, of his outstanding courage throughout, of the roots of discord between my father and my uncle.  He spoke endlessly, something I hadn't thought possible, since he was so famous for not speaking at all.  He told me that he had always considered my father a true friend and that he was a good man that had taught him important life lessons, he thought my father'd be proud of how I had turned out.  When it was all over we went back inside to find Hilde and Duo quietly watching TV.  An almost imperceptible nod passed between the two men and Trowa excused himself, promising to make contact again before he left the colony.  I haven't spoken to him since.

Journal Entry: 11.15.AC214

I'm not sure why, but I was just thinking about the day I almost drowned.  I must have been about seven or eight, I wasn't supposed to go swimming in the lake by myself, there was always supposed to be an adult with me. But I didn't care, I thought I could handle it on my own, so I got up from where I was playing, climbed over the patio rail and down to the lake.  I ran straight to the lake with every intention of swimming and waded right in without a care.  I don't quite remember what happened next, maybe I tripped and fell forward or just lost my footing, but I went under.  I remember struggling to catch my breath for what seemed like an eternity and then I guess I passed out.  When I came to, I was on the bank of the lake, with everyone huddling around me.  No one knows how I got there, they just happened to stumble upon me during their desperate search.  Someone must have rescued me, but none of the staff that was searching the grounds admitted to pulling me out or recalled anyone else coming or going.  For I while after, I told myself that an angel had rescued me.  I made the angel out to be the likeness of my father as I remembered him from the pictures. I knew deep down inside that it wasn't really him, but I wanted to believe it.  To this day, when I picture angels in my head, they still have dark blue eyes and unruly brown hair.

They would have been about my age now when they first met and I can't imagine having lived the next three years of their lives. The wars. The Gundams. White Fang, Romefeller, OZ, the Mariemaia Army and the Unified World Nations. So much loss, so much pain.  It all seems like ancient history now, they even teach it at school.  My close friends think it's cool that I know so many people that had so much to do with it.  Sometimes I think they're gonna ask me to get autographs or something, but they don't. And I'm glad.  I don't want to remind them of that time, because they still carry the scars deep within, I've seen them. 

. . . Maybe Zechs was right after all . . .

My uncle still carries the pain, and the shame, of what happened, I've overheard those comments too; "look that's  Zechs Marquise – the Lightning Count . . .", ". . . Milliardo Peacecraft? wasn't he the leader of the White Fang". But he and his wife are happy and they've made a life for themselves and their children, they've reconciled the past and are working to improve the future. I know now he doesn't hate my father, he's told me so and I believe him.  It was hard for him at first, they had been on opposite sides of the battle for so long.  But I think as the years went by he realized that my father truly loved her, and he came to accept him. He's told me about the day I was born, mom had not been feeling well towards the end of the pregnancy and my father had been a total wreck.  It was late in AC199, he seemed to be reverting to his 'old personality', glaring at everyone from under the (slightly shorter) hair in his face.  His previously trademark monosyllabic response to all queries and comments had returned as well.  "Hn" my uncle had quoted, "that's all he would ever say, 'Hn'".  It was driving the staff crazy and it was scaring everyone.  All except mom, Milliardo said she seemed to take it in stride. If he glared at her, she would just return a smile and the glare would end.  If he 'hn'd' her, she would act like he had answered her question, and always the way she wanted it answered, often times that would elicit a glare. Only to have it washed away with a smile. According to her journal entries from that time, he didn't act that way when they were alone. He had gotten into the habit of waiting up until she fell asleep and getting up before her, just to be sure he would be awake if she needed him.  She was convinced that his short fuse with the others was a result of sleepless nights. She said she often woke to find him sitting in the same place and the same position he'd been in when she'd drifted off to sleep.  She was worried that he might actually be too exhausted to do anything when the time finally came.  She was wrong.

They were walking the grounds of the estate when her water broke.  He immediately laid her down and ran to get the car. On his mad dash he nearly knocked down everyone and everything he came across.  He drove the car out onto the lawn, placed her in the back seat and proceeded to break every traffic law in the book but managed to get her to hospital in three minutes.  The delivery was relatively quick and painless, it was over in less than four hours. But to hear my uncle tell it, they were an interesting 4 hours.  Apparently my father still had the habit of carrying a gun with him wherever he went, so naturally when the time came to rush to the hospital, he was armed. My aunt and uncle were the first to arrive in the maternity ward waiting room.  What they found was my father pacing a hole in the floor on one side of the room and all the family members of the other expectant mothers huddled into a small area as far away from him as possible. They stared fearfully at what looked like a caged beast.  They exchanged strained smiles with the poor frightened people huddled in a corner and quickly decided to move him into the hallway. He refused to move more than 5 meters from the delivery area, in case he was needed.  He glared at every doctor, nurse and orderly that entered or exited through the double doors separating him from the birthing rooms. By the end of the second hour, Lucrezia was afraid that he might pull his gun on the next person passing through the door.  By then Sally, Wufei and Quatre had arrived to lend their moral support.  They too ended up huddling in an area of the hallway about a meter away from him.  They discussed the logistics of disarming him,  no one wanted to be the one to have to do it.  They even considered offering him a drink with a sedative, to facilitate the disarmament. They decided against it when Wufei reminded them how he would react after the sedative wore off. The next two hours passed tensely, everyone was on pins and needles.  Finally, mom's doctor emerged and announced the safe arrival of a healthy baby girl, mother and daughter were fine, and would the father like to join them.  From all accounts he nearly flew through the doors and down the hall to her room.

They had already agreed on my name, though it wasn't an easy decision. He wanted a name that denoted strength and power; she wanted a name that denoted beauty and grace. They agreed on an ancient name, Helena, a woman whose remarkable beauty and grace had the power to start a conflict over love.  It seemed appropriate.  It occurred to me a few years ago that I couldn't have asked for a better name.  Helena: part Heero, part Relena.  I wonder if they ever noticed?

~~ to be continued ~~

AN:  Thank you for reading, this is my first outing in the world of fanfics and I hope it lives up to your expectations.  This idea has been rumbling about in my head for a while and it finally just had to be written.  Please tell me what you think of it by dropping a line.  Thanks to my beta reader LooNeGirl117, love ya'.  

Writers get so lonely if readers don't comment.  Write me at:  _BadMomma64@aol.com_

Disclaimer:  I do not own Gundam Wing.


	2. Chapter 2

**THE JOURNAL **

**Chapter 2**

**By:  BadMomma**

Notes at the bottom.

Helena's thoughts

Journal Entry:  11.15.AC214

"You can be as stubborn as your father!" she told me today, letting out her breath and shaking her head ever so slightly.  Wow, I didn't know how to react.  It was the first time she'd mentioned him in months and to be honest I don't think I remember the last time she actually initiated a reference to him.  Of course she hadn't initiated the conversation (that was me) but I didn't care, I was so excited about his mention that all I could think to do was smile.  I needed to think of the right response – and quickly.  We hadn't talked about him in what felt like ages and I wanted to veer the conversation in that direction before I lost the opportunity.  She must have read my mind because the next words out of her mouth were "and don't try to change the subject on me, he always tried that one too and it never worked . . . well, not usually" then a sweet little smile threatened to turn up the corners of her mouth.  This was almost too much to bare, we were talking about him  sort of and she was smiling; no pain, no far-off looks, no hint of tears anywhere!  The next words from her mouth shook me from my reverie and almost left me passed out on floor of her office. "We can discuss him in a minute, first we finish the matter at hand".  

The matter at hand!  You would have thought I was suggesting she allow me to get my own apartment in town and that she continue to support me financially!  All I had asked was if I could spend the night at a friend's, my best friend's. Katie had been my best friend since we met in fourth grade.  Mom knew her family well, both of Katie's parents are in the diplomatic corps and we'd often played together when our parents attended official dinners or held late working meetings;  they had been over to our house on plenty of occasions for birthdays and barbeques.  Katie's parents were probably the only friends mom had that weren't from the time of turmoil.  They were good decent people and I don't know why she objected to my spending the night.  

My girl friends and I wanted to go out and catch a film, have some dinner, maybe do some shopping or go to the arcade and then have a sleep-over.  Five teenage girls giggling and talking about boys, a night of total girliness, and Katie's mom had agreed to host it.  It would be my last night out with my friends in a while and they just wanted to celebrate my birthday, it was no big deal.  Duo would be arriving late that same afternoon, but he'd be heading straight for the Preventers' base to spend the night there after his meetings.  I'd be back by the middle of the next day, it's not like I'd be neglecting my guest.  Well, guests actually, Quatre had called in the morning and said he would be in town, so we invited him to come stay with us for the remainder of the weekend.  It's weird now that I think about it, they've talked about how they weren't really a team, they were never meant to act together, but they always ended up as a group.  It's natural that my aunt and uncle are always around since they live on the property, but it never ceases to amaze me how someone always casually turns up when one of them decides to come visit, and Sally and Wufei are never too far behind. I don't think it would surprise me too much if Trowa mysteriously showed up for the weekend, too.  Though I doubt that. There's something not totally right between him and mom. I guess it's another question I'll have to have answered, just one more.  

But that's not important now. I won. I don't know if I convinced her it wouldn't be that bad to let me go for the night or if she just realized how silly she was being, but she agreed.  I could spend the night at Katie's as long as I promised to be back in time for lunch.  When we were done I almost expected her to rush me out of her office so she could get back to work but she turned to her computer and shut it down, filed a few papers from her desk, and informed her secretary that she would be unavailable for a little while.  Then she looked up at me with a determined smile, let out a quick breath and said "let's go for a walk".  

One of the good things about her having an office at the house is that we had a place to go where we could instantly be alone.  We walked for a bit in silence in the general direction of the big oak by the side of the lake.  She startled me by starting without any prodding.  "You know you really are a lot like him in so many ways, aside from your looks that is."  My looks, I had heard it so many times before.  I had her complexion and plumbing, but that was pretty much it.  I had his mouth, his nose, the same hoarse quality to my voice, the same color and shape eyes.  And then there was the hair, the unruly brown hair, a few bangs in the front but long in the back.  Just past my shoulders, that way I can wear it in a pony-tail, tied at the base of my neck or with two braids on the sides and pulled back – similar to how she used to wear it when she was younger.  Sometimes I opt for what we've come to call the 'baka-look'.  

I remember the day it earned that name.  Hilde and Duo were visiting, he had come for a conference or something and Hilde had spent the day with mom. I was just getting home from school when I heard a car pull up behind me on the driveway and saw it was Duo.  I dropped my school bag and ran to him jumping up into his arms for a big bear hug. I love him so much He's funny and silly, always cracking jokes, always trying to pull a fast one on somebody.  He's like a big kid!  He carried me in the bear hug all the way to the door, picking up my bag as we passed it.  At the front door he shifted me to a piggy-back so we could pass through the door safely and he could see where we were going.  The doorman said that 'the ladies' were on the veranda, so that's where we headed.  'Thee vuraahnduh' he kept repeating, imitating the doorman's quirky pronunciation, we laughed all the way there as he came up with every imaginable sentence in which to use the words.  

I guess they must have heard us coming because by the time we got to the door they were both looking in our direction. He quickly dropped me down in front of him and we said 'hiya!' at exactly the same time. A brief silence followed, then mom and Hilde just burst out laughing! They couldn't control themselves, I thought mom was going to fall off her chair.  They were rocking back and forth in hysterics, gasping out 'oh my god' and 'it's so . . . they're so . . .' Duo and I just looked at each other, what was so funny all we did was say hello?  Hilde had started to regain her composure and finally giggled out "They could be twins!" We looked at each other again, shrugged and turned our attention back to them.  We looked nothing alike, what were they talking about?  Duo took a little step forward to stand next to me, put his hand on my shoulder and asked Hilde what was so funny.  Mom was the one to respond, "look at the two of you, in your little uniforms, with those silly looks on your faces, and your braids hanging over your shoulders."  Duo's braid of course was considerably longer than mine, but she had a point.  He stared at me for a moment and with something like paternal-pride said, "Hey, are you going for the wonderful, handsome, killer-sexy look like your old Uncle Duo?"  The comment elicited an even stronger wave of hysterics from the two women sitting in front of us, so much so that mom had to grab the arm rest to avoid falling out of her seat.  Suddenly Hilde started, "yeah . . . sure . . . if . . . if . . . what . . .she wants . . . is the . . . the . . . the baka look!"  He returned her that cute pouty-lipped 'I'm so hurt' look and then we all lost it.  That afternoon they told us Hilde was pregnant.

. . . I love you and Helena, I always will . . .

"I'm sorry" her words startled me back from my memories, "sorry that we don't talk about him that often."  I looked up and noticed that we had reached the big oak.  She took my hand and pulled me down to sit at the base of the tree.  She looked out over the lake but her eyes didn't see it, there were other things in her sight and I hoped against hope that the sad look would not overtake her face, if it did this conversation would be over quickly.  She continued, almost as if pushed from behind to speak.  "It's not that I don't think about him, I see him every day, every time I look at you."  The words had no sting, but I cringed a bit anyway.  "Do you know that you walk like him.  I've watched you when you're in the garden, or when you're coming in from school, or just walking around the house.  The fall of your steps has the same rhythm, it's really incredible." She looked at me a bit nervously and giggled, "Oh it's not like I mind, I love the sound and the look of it."  She paused a moment, looked back up and then continued unfazed. "We used to come out here all the time, we'd sit under this tree and just stare out over the lake.  Sometimes we talked, well mostly I talked, about my job, the paperwork, the meetings, the petty people who frustrated me and he would just listen. We would hold hands or play with the grass as we sat cross-legged facing each other.  Some days he'd wrap his arms around me and pull me back so that my head and shoulders rested against his chest. We were in our own universe, defined by his embrace." 

She had stopped again when the slightest bit of color came to her cheeks; she noticed I was watching her and with a chuckle she leaned over and said in a hushed tone, " 'talk' wasn't the only thing we did out here." I guess the shock of her statement was betrayed on my face, she returned the look with mock-shock and said.  "What!?! You don't actually believe you were the product of a virgin birth, do you? . . . It's funny, he was so stiff and serious with everyone else and yet with me he was so kind and gentle. Not at first though," she continued with a smirk "I thought we would never get past those sweet little kisses I'd get from him right before he disappeared from sight. I began to wonder if I was the only 17-year old in the universe that had never been properly kissed!"  She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, stretching her back as she did.  I was afraid to move, didn't want to break her concentration or stall the memories that were being shared.  I had wanted to hear these things for so long. I knew they loved each other; but we had never really talked about their relationship, how they'd gotten together, what they were like with each other.  This was something new and wonderful and I wasn't going to jeopardize it by distracting her.

We talked almost until sunset.  She told me how it had taken him almost 3 months to loosen up enough to hold her hand in the presence of others after their first real kiss. After that it took another 2 months before he stopped taking or making up assignments to avoid attending functions with her.  They hadn't really start living together until about four or five months after their first night together.  She had been living in the main building on the estate back then, with an army of servants and a full wing of staffed offices.  They had only been caught a few times in slightly compromising situations, nothing major, but it was still embarrassing enough to have your secretary and your future-sister-in-law interrupt a passionate kiss on the credenza. 

Apparently the servants were having trouble adjusting as well;  the maids kept entering her room in the morning to layout fresh towels for the bath without knocking. If they were still sleeping it wasn't too bad, but the last straw was the time they had been coming out of the bathroom together without the benefit of much cover, that's when they decided they needed some privacy. Within the week, they had moved into the house we live in now. They had opted for few servants and no one stayed overnight in the house. A doorman/butler, a cook who handled the daily meals, and a maid that arrived with the cook. No one was scheduled to work the weekends unless specifically engaged for some event.  This allowed them the option to sleep in undisturbed on Saturday and Sunday mornings or to wake in the living room in front of the fire after having spent the night enjoying the warmth and each other.  She talked about their rendez-vous by the fountain out behind my uncle's house.  They were young and in love, she mused, they would go there to have a quiet dinner alone and often made love under the stars, it was relatively secluded so they knew there would be no interruptions.  She admitted that she still goes there sometimes, when she wants to feel close to him.

Journal Entry:  11.16.AC214

What a day. I was welcomed home today by the faint sounds of friendship.  Passing into the foyer, I could hear the multitude of voices, I couldn't make out what they were saying but I could hear laughing, gasping, a brief silence and then an exclamation of mock-insult, followed by more laughter and clapping.  It had been a while since there was so much noise in the house, it was nice.  They were probably in the smaller dining room adjacent to the kitchen, that's where we usually congregated when it was just close friends.

I bolted towards the stairs to drop my things in the bedroom, as I approached I could make out some of what they were saying.  I called out to let mom know that I was home and that I'd be right down, she pointed out that I was a little late, and I apologized explaining that I'd had a wardrobe emergency.  Duo yelled to hurry cause he was starving.  Sally commented on how unusual that was and again the room erupted with laughter. They were in a good mood.  As the voices trailed off I noticed Hilde's voice in the mix. I was glad she had come, maybe we'd get a little birthday-clothes shopping done before we left, mom's taste tended to be a bit frilly and conservative and I liked my stuff more modern and casual. This was going to be lots of fun.

I dropped my bags and considered changing my top but decided against it.  I had spilled some breakfast on myself so I'd borrowed a top from Katie.  A quick peek at the mirror and I nixed the idea, I looked fine.  I decided to go down the back stairs, the 'look-out stairs' I used to call them.  They lead directly to the back of the kitchen and from just the right vantage point you could not only eavesdrop on conversations, but you could get a pretty good view of the dining room. I came down stealthily and instantly heard the low rumblings of my uncle's voice, ". . . and apparently my beloved Noin wants another one. How are you making due with three Hilde?"  "Oh, just fine I guess," she began to answer "the twins have always been a handful, they're mini-Duos with energy to burn, but the baby is quiet and she doesn't fuss at all.  Quite different from the first time!" By now I had positioned myself where I could see most of them. Mom was at the far end of the table, to her left were Duo and Hilde, then Quatre. Lucrezia was sitting opposite mom at the near end with Milliardo sitting close to her just around the corner to her left, next to him I could see Sally's arm which meant that Wufei was sitting to the right of my mom.

Duo made some comment about how he had done all the work when the twins were little and Hilde gave him a quick tug on the braid and called him a baka, he just winked back and gave her a peck on the cheek.  I'd worn my baka-look today just for him, it always made Duo happy, it was something we shared and he loved to play with it.  Just then Duo piped up again, "so how many do you have now Quatre, 12, 15?".  

"No Duo, there's only eight. We both come from big families so it just seems natural to us.  After all we haven't been married that long!" he replied.  

It was Wufei's turn to chide Duo, I couldn't see him but there was no mistaking the voice "Really Maxwell, they would have had to wait a while after marrying, anyway it's like a Winner-anniversary tradition, 'Attention everyone: we've been married another year and we're having another baby'.  Remember the year they married, subtract one and that's the number of children!  Even an idiot like you should be able to manage it."  Wufei was quite adept at saying the funniest things without actually intending to. Quatre turned all shades of red, everyone laughed and Milliardo reached out to grab his wife's hand as he raised his eyebrows repeatedly at her in a sly inviting way.  I heard the sound of flesh against flesh, a slap, and then the retort: "Woman, stop striking me! It is very annoying." Sally's only response was that maybe he and she should reconsider their relationship and start producing children because at the rate everyone else was going they would never be able to catch up. Wufei responded rather matter-of-factly that based on Trowa's prowess in the dating department she had nothing to worry about, they both would have another decade to find partners and Trowa still wouldn't catch up. Again the laughter ensued and this time I couldn't control it, I had given myself away.  

"Is that you, Helena?" mom asked in the general direction of the stairs, a few heads turned as I came out of the shadows.  Mom and Milliardo knew exactly where to look, they had found me eavesdropping there before, once a few years back my uncle had even had to carry me up to bed because I had fallen asleep in the process.  

As I stepped into view the room went silent, with the exception of a few gasps, you could have heard a pin drop. The faces of the few people looking my way was sheer and utter astonishment, the others reacted to their shock by turning to see what it was all about. I stopped in mid-step, what had I done? Why were they all staring at me? Mom was the first to recover, "come on in honey, we've all been waiting for you". As I made my way around the table distributing hugs and kisses I caught them exchanging strange glances but no one said anything, it was really strange.  I finally got to where mom was, gave her a quick hug and looked back around the room.  

No one had spoken yet and I couldn't take it anymore, so I asked "do I have a horn coming out of my head or something, why are you all looking at me like that?" Again it was mom who reacted first, "well honey I don't think anyone was quite prepared to see you that way.  Remember what I told you yesterday about resembling your father, I think you just proved my point!" 

At that Duo jumped in, "yeah, for a minute there I thought you were Heero, only you're prettier. He used to wear jeans and a green tank top like that one all the time, you almost made the God of Death have a heart attack".  He leaned over from where he was sitting and grabbed my braid to pull me towards him. There was a collective sigh of relief around the room, as he scooched over to offer me a corner of his chair.  Nervous chuckles began to fill the room and little by little everything returned to normal.  

We spent most of the afternoon in the dining room even after we had finished eating lunch.  The day was spent reminiscing about their youth, though I wouldn't have thought that a very pleasant subject.  But it seems that their lives and happy memories all began after the wars.  Most of the funny stories they told were about odd situations they had gotten into because they weren't accustomed to acting like normal teenagers or about how - because they were teenagers - they found themselves surround by adults who didn't seem to want to acknowledge their abilities.  It's amazing how they all accomplished so much at such a young age.  

Quatre had taken over running his family business pretty much all by himself within a year of the end of the Mariemaia conflict. And while he sometimes didn't immediately get the respect he deserved from his business associates, his astute business sense and strategic abilities quickly won them over.  Duo and Hilde had taken to running their scrap business as a side source of income, because they were both involved with the Preventers.  But within a year or two the business, which is now called Resource Reclamation, was taking up a lot of time so Hilde quit the Preventers altogether and concentrated on the company which they merged with a couple of Duo's old Sweeper buddies. Duo continued to do double duty.  She now mostly handles the financials for their small conglomerate, which allows her to work from home and spend time with the kids.  Sally, Wufei, Milliardo and Noin are still full-time employees of the Preventers.  Sally and Wufei are part of the Investigative branch, they train new recruits and handle missions and operations, Milliardo is in the Diplomatic Liaisons Corps and Noin is involved in the administrative aspects of the agency working under Lady.

It was nice to hear them all laughing and talking about the things they had done, they even told a few stories about my father, never once hesitating at his mention.  I couldn't have asked for a much better day. I guess the only thing that could have made it better was if he was here to share it with.

~~ to be continued ~~

AN:  If you're still reading then, thanks.  I guess that means you liked it, so I hope you continue to read.  Please write to let me know what you think of it.  I'm trying hard to keep everybody IC, but matured (the guys'd be about 34 here).  If you can just drop me a note to tell me what you think.  Thanks again to LooneGirl.  Take care ya'll.  Write me at:  _BadMomma64@aol.com_

Disclaimer:  Unfortunately, GundamWing does not belong to me.


	3. Chapter 3

**THE JOURNAL**

**Chapter 3**

**By:  BadMomma**

Helena's thoughts

Journal entry:  11.19.AC214

 . . . this time I cannot return . . .

I need to know why.  Why 'this time', what was different about this mission that would keep him from returning?  What would make him never come back.  What was it about him that made mom so sure he wouldn't return. Duo may not have the answers but he should at least be able to help me start to figure it out.  Now I'll probably have to wait until tomorrow before I can ask, after we arrive we're going straight to pick the kids up and will most likely stay for dinner at her parents' house.  Once we get to their place there will be kids to get to bed and unpacking to do, while I'm glad for mom and the others that Hilde came with him it's really thrown a wrench in my plans. 

The shuttle should be arriving at the colony pretty soon, they've both been sleeping for a good couple of hours already. We all stayed up pretty late last night. They look so cute snuggled together like two pieces of a puzzle there in the bench across from me.  His right arm around her back, her head on his shoulder with her nose tucked into the nook between his collar bone and neck.  Her right hand in his left, with their fingers entwined. He'd leaned his head gently on hers when she first dozed off to nuzzle and kiss her forehead and that's just how he'd fallen asleep.  Every once in a while one of them shifts a little but they never separate, their bodies never part.  I'm dead tired, but too anxious to fall asleep.  I knew we'd be traveling back in one of the privacy suites on the shuttle and had counted on talking to him all the way, but now we'll be arriving on L2 within the hour and I haven't had the chance. I've been rereading a lot her journals just trying to piece it together, but there are no indications whatsoever that could explain his disappearance. Father what am I missing?

Journal Entry:  11.22.AC214

It's almost 1 o'clock in the morning and everyone else is in bed now.  I've been so busy since we got here that I haven't had a chance to think or write, but after today I definitely need to do both.  Writing will help me think, and thinking will help me decide what I need to do next. I'm so wired right now that even if I wanted to I don't think I could sleep, I'll have several hours to digest what he told me. At least I have one question answered. But now I have so many more and I wonder if I can forgive him? I guess I'll have to, he seemed genuinely sorry that he hadn't told her, hadn't told mom that my father was with him. But what about the others, oh God, help me have I been blind and stupid or have they been deceiving me all this time?

Hilde wanted to go to dinner at this restaurant that opened up recently so she made reservations for us this afternoon, we had a table for six (we were taking the kids) at 7pm.  That would give me more than enough time, I had made arrangements to meet Trowa at 4pm at a park just a few blocks away from the restaurant, I convinced Duo that if he dropped me off for my meeting, I'd make my way to dinner without fail.  He didn't seem too happy about my walking there on my own, but I reminded him that there'd still be daylight and that I could take care of myself.  He reluctantly agreed.  Thank god!

Duo had something to pick up at the port, so he dropped me off at the park a few minutes early and pointed me in the direction of my meeting place with Trowa.  He had offered to walk me there and wait until he showed up, but I wanted those few minutes to get my thoughts together and plan out the order that I would ask my questions.  I had some specific questions to ask this time around.  As I crossed the pleasant little footbridge over the last creek between me and our meeting place I noticed he was already there.  He was sitting on the bench next to a small memorial for the civilians who'd lost their lives in the Eve Wars, his arms folded across his chest, legs casually crossed at the knee, with his chin to his chest. Had he been sleeping or just thinking.  As I came closer I noticed for the first time what a handsome man he was.  Really they all kind of were, older but very handsome – or maybe attractive - yes that's more like it, attractive, like human magnets. I don't know why it struck me just then, this amazingly strong presence in the midst of all that nature, maybe that was it. 

I called his name out when I was just a couple of meters away, he rose swiftly and gracefully, extending a hand out to me and inviting me to join him on the bench.  He politely asked about everyone back home, about Duo, Hilde and the kids, just pleasantries. It's a good thing too because I was still stuck on my previous thought and had proceeded to mentally catalog his physical appearance.  He was tall, he had wide muscular shoulders that seemed to be accentuated by the white-linen shirt that fell over him like a breeze.  He had strong, gentle looking hands with slim long fingers that hung gracefully off the end of the arm he'd placed on the back of the bench. He sat upright but not rigid, his posture casual and open.  His eyes, one barely visible behind the famous bangs in his face, not quite looking at me, but holding my attention. I noticed he had stopped speaking and the bluntness of my question startled even me.  "Why is it that you and mom don't really get along?" 

I had figured out that Trowa's sporadic visits to the estate had completely stopped within months of my father's disappearance.  Even though his circus troop had traveled to neighboring countries over the years, he'd never come to see us again. He cleared his throat then answered as bluntly as I had asked.  "I'd lied to her, by omission, didn't think she'd want to see me." 

He'd lied. Everyone lies at some point in time, how could that be enough to cause such discord.  I turned to face him waiting for him to continue, he looked me straight in the eyes this time and said "I need to give you some background first." 

He told me he'd grown up pretty much alone, no family and no friends, a soldier for as long as he remembered. Then there were the wars.  Quatre was the first Gundam pilot he'd met and befriended, but he hadn't stayed with him long because he didn't know what it meant to have or be a friend. It wasn't his way. Just after that was when he met my father.  Unbeknownst to each other, they had all received the same new mission, but it had been a trap and Oz used the threat of destroying a colony as a bargaining chip to get them to surrender.  That was when my father attempted to destroy his Gundam, and almost killed himself in the process.  Trowa had been so moved by father's selfless act that he recovered the near-lifeless body and nursed him back to health. He says that over the course of the next few months he learned what friendship was all about.  Not that he and father had gotten chummy he explained, they were a lot alike, very quiet and always serious. What was it he said they were, I almost laughed out loud,  oh yeah . . . 'Men of few words'. They conducted conversations involving three-word sentences Catherine had apparently pointed out. As father felt better he'd helped out at the circus, people often came and went so no one had questioned his being there.  Then the time came for them to move on. Father needed to contact the family of a man he had inadvertently killed in battle and Trowa was going to help him.  In their time together Trowa said he learned the importance of personal conviction, of acting on your ideals, and to do that he would have to open himself to feel things. It was one of the most important lessons of his life and it had taken him fifteen years to realize it, it would take him longer to live it. He owed my father a debt of gratitude he didn't think he could ever repay. They'd parted company shortly after that, after some ludicrous fight between my father and my uncle. I'll have to ask Milliardo about it, he obviously knows much more than he's said 

They later met again in space, Trowa had infiltrated OZ and father had allowed himself to be captured for reasons I didn't quite understand. But during that period, Trowa became even more indebted to my father than he had thought possible. In a mobile suit battle against Quatre, who'd obviously had a nervous breakdown of some sort, father deflected Quatre's attention long enough to keep him from killing Trowa.  While the battle left him badly injured and amnesic, father had saved his life. He'd eventually recovered his memories with the help of something called the Zero System guess I have some more digging to do and eventually they fought together again to end that conflict.

In the years that followed the wars, father had occasionally spent time with him at the circus during his cleansing periods. Since the circus traveled it wasn't inconceivable that their paths would one day cross.  The first time it had happened accidentally, he had spotted my father walking down the street and had followed him to a shabby hotel, after a time he convinced father to go back with him to the circus. If all he needed was a place to stay for a few days, the circus was inconspicuous enough.  They developed a plan by which Trowa would let him know where they'd be performing, if it coincided with the location of one of the missions, father would contact him and join the troop for a while.  It was as good a cover as any for father's movements and it would serve another purpose; it would be a way for Trowa to repay his debt, and it never hurt to have someone watch your back. No one was to know; not mom, not the Preventers, not even the other pilots, it would jeopardize the missions. Trowa would continue to receive his assignments, mostly data gathering, and no one would be the wiser. I knew he was still involved It had worked out fine for a few years and then in AC201 it all changed.  

Father had just returned from his assignment, "he didn't seem quite himself" Trowa said.  He didn't eat and almost entirely stopped sleeping, pure physical exhaustion became the only exception. Trowa tried to coax the information out of him but all father would say was that he'd screwed up, bad.  The mission itself had not failed, Trowa was able to hack that much out of the Preventers' database, which meant something else had gone wrong.  My father refused to tell him and try as he might Trowa couldn't dig up any indications of collateral damage.  All he knew was that father was becoming more and more disconsolate, and before he realized it a month had passed since the end of the mission.  Trowa knew that my father always went home after two weeks and he knew that mom would be worried sick; but he had promised not to let anyone know.  He couldn't violate that trust, "Heero Yuy had been my closest friend for years", a steeliness had crept into his eyes as he continued, "we never questioned each other's actions or motives".  He had to believe that father had his reasons and that things would resolve themselves in short order. He'd heard that mom was looking for him and he had purposely avoided contact with the others; he knew he wouldn't be able to avoid them forever but he held out hope that it would be long enough for my father to get it together.

Another week or two passed, the troop was getting ready to move on to their next location and father began to come around. He still hadn't told Trowa what happened, but he appeared to be getting ready to go home.  He would disappear for a couple of hours at a time, Trowa had assumed it was to prepare his return so he let him be. Then one day he saw father emerging from the administration trailer, he only ever went there to use the computer, which was a sure sign of his departure.  When father didn't say anything, Trowa decided to try retracing the transmission, but he was no match for Heero Yuy.  My father had covered his tracks completely and within a day he was gone.  All he left was a brief note scribbled on a napkin, 'Good-bye Trowa. Thank you'. 

. . . Tell the others not to look for me . . . 

He paused a few minutes, I don't know if he was trying to figure out what to say next or if the sheer volume of what he'd just said had tired him. He probably hadn't said that much since the last time he'd spoken to me. It was probably even more than he'd said in all the time that had passed between our two meetings. I began to get restless, it was impossible to guess from the look on his face what would happen next.  I still had questions and this conversation was nowhere near over. And then it hit like a tidal wave crashing into me, more genuine and sincere sorrow than I had ever felt in my life. "I'm so sorry, for you and for Relena, if I had known what he had in mind I might have acted differently." The admission of guilt hung between us like a black hole.  "It wasn't until a few months later when Wufei tracked me down that I realized what he had done, and by then it was too late to change anything.  I thought he had returned home and since no one knew he'd been here, I never inquired. I had continued leaving him messages as to our whereabouts, just like before, expecting that he would contact me when the need arose. I guess he knew I would never betray him." 

He sighed and turned his head away from me, shaking it ever so slightly, anger and frustration directed at himself evident in his next words. "I can never imagine the pain of abandonment you both must feel, but I know the loneliness all too well.  It's my fault you don't know your father and I wouldn't blame you if you hated me, I know your mother must. I thought he had changed, I thought the two of you had given him a reason to change.  We have all, one way or another, made peace with our pasts.  I am so sorry, so, so sorry." Trowa radiated anger and self-loathing, strangely mixed with profound sorrow. We sat silently for a while.  Maybe there wasn't much more to say, in his eyes he had committed a grievous sin and nothing I could say would change that.  Not that I was sure I wanted to, was it really that simple, he had betrayed a mother and daughter to honor the trust of a friend. Thoughts began to coalesce in my head, what was it he had just said, they'd 'made peace with their pasts', 'he had changed', we'd given him 'reason to change', 'change'.  

"Changed?"  I had said it out loud because he looked at me funny and said "I don't understand". I collected myself and repeated, "Changed what Trowa? You said you thought he had CHANGED, that we would have been reason enough for him to change.  Change what Trowa?" I said it again, why didn't he understand what I was asking?  It was a simple enough question! Again he just shook his head at me and said "I don't know what you mean, I'm sorry" I was about to burst. This man could not be that dumb, what exactly did he not understand? "Change, change, change!" I repeated growing angrier as I spit the words at him, "why did you say THAT, what did you mean you thought he had changed" he just continued staring at me. "What was it about him BEFORE – and before WHAT for God's sake – that he would have had to change.  You were all soldiers, you all did what you had to do. Death and destruction, I understand.  War is hell, I understand.  No, I've never experienced it personally but that's only because you saw to that.  He was no different than anyone else was he; he was just a soldier, a soldier like any other on the battlefield.  No better, no worse, just another soldier.  It's not like he single handedly won the war. You guys had the Gundams and that gave you all an advantage, but it gave all of you the same advantage.  You, Duo, Quatre, Wufei, my father, you were all exactly the same! Duo's always been a goofball, Quatre's always been sweet, Wufei's always been rigid, and you, well you've always been silent so I've been told.  So what WAS he that you no longer thought he was?" My frustrations had loosed a tirade the likes of which I'd never experienced before, I had just unloaded a year and half worth of accumulated frustrations on a man I hardly knew.  I don't know if I had been whispering or yelling, but my head was swimming and I put my head in my hands, elbows on my knees to try to steady the turbulence within when he finally spoke again.  

"Ruthless." 

. . . maybe I'm not good for you . . .

I didn't know how to react, it was as if my mind could not comprehend the word he'd just spoken. The turbulence was still there only now I couldn't breathe, I couldn't take much more of this. Images of my father popped into my head, his beautiful loving face, his gentle smile looking down at me, his overwhelming passion for my mother. Those images and that word did not compute. I felt dizzy, nauseous. He was speaking again, ". . . were not the same at all, he was better than the rest of us.  He had been MADE that way.  His training had made him ruthless.  He would have given his life to accomplish a mission, that was really all that mattered to him.  He would do whatever it took to get the job done, and if it meant risking his life or someone else's he would have done it anyway". God, I wanted him to stop talking, I still hadn't recovered from my own rant and his response was more than I could handle. But it kept coming so I put my hand up to his mouth, just to make the words cease. He stopped. I welcomed the silence like an addict welcomes their next fix. When my breathing evened out again and the haze began to clear I looked at him again, he had an understanding gaze, "I'm sorry, of course no one would have told you." He reached out and took my hands in his, so warm and gentle. He was looking at them intently as if focusing on anything but my face would make it easier for me. 

Then he continued, "Your father was trained to put his mission objectives above everything, including his own life.  It was the only way he knew to live, he was an exemplary soldier.  There was only one way to end the trouble and that required him to hold nothing back, the destruction of OZ and the cessation of hostility between the earth and the colonies was paramount.  He wasn't a bad man, but he sought his goal with such calculated, ruthless fervor that he appeared more machine than man sometimes.  I knew he was human, I'd seen him bleed, I'd seen the regret in his eyes when he'd made a mistake, and the determination to see that your mother survived the conflict so she could achieve what was her goal, complete peace.  The years passed and he had put away his ruthlessness, he'd allowed his humanity to rise up, he had loved your mother with the same kind of zeal that he had fought with, the same dedication. He was still an accomplished soldier so he put his skills to good use first protecting your mother and then working for the Preventers. But every fiber of his body was committed to her and renewed by her love.  To this day I still don't know the exact reason why he left you. I think he must have done it because he was convinced of one of two things; either he believed he was a danger to you or he believed he had betrayed his humanity." 

Silence passed between us and I sat there trying to soak in all he had said when a bell tower somewhere brought me back to the present.  There was no more time to talk, not that I could have handled any more information, Hilde and Duo would be waiting for me at the restaurant and I had to go. I stood and felt him grab my hand as I turned to leave.  He gently squeezed it and looked silently at me, sorrow and regret in his gaze. I nodded and walked away. I turned back to him as I reached the mouth of the creek and echoed my father's words  "Goodbye Trowa, thank you."  He nodded and watched me cross the bridge. I looked back one last time to see if he was still there raising my hand to wave a last goodbye, but he wasn't looking at me. His face was turned towards the memorial.  He seemed to nod or shake his head.Was he talking to someone? Then I saw him stand, shake his head again and walk away in the other direction, his hands in his pockets. There was nothing where Trowa had been looking so I ran off without further delay. I was already late for dinner.

Duo was standing outside the restaurant with his hands on his hips looking like he was going to chew me out for being late.  It was almost 7:30.  He met me half way down the block and started to ask where the hell I'd been when I looked up at him.  I guess I hadn't regained my composure as well as I thought because he stopped mid-sentence.  His mouth opened as if he was going to say something, but instead just put an arm around my shoulder and walked me to the door. As we stepped inside, he leaned over and asked if I'd prefer to go home, he offered to make some excuse to Hilde, but I declined.  I put on my best face and we proceeded to where Hilde and the kids were sitting.  Dinner seemed to drag on forever, all the while I did my best to act as if everything was right-as-rain, but there was a thunderstorm brewing inside of me and I just wanted to be alone.

When we got home, I came straight to 'my' room, I closed the door and threw myself on the bed, face buried in the pillow just wanting to empty my mind.  His words keep playing in my head.  Duo knocked on the door a little while later and asked if he could come in, I told him I was sleepy and could we just talk tomorrow.  He knows something. I can't talk to him yet, there are things I need to sort out.  

. . . maybe I'm not good. . .

I'll have to talk to Duo tomorrow.  I hope he'll help me make sense of what Trowa told me today.  But why hasn't anyone ever said anything like that about him before.  Were they afraid I wouldn't be able to handle it or did they just not want me to know what he'd been like back then?  Was he really ruthless?  That's such a harsh word.  Could mom really have loved him that much, could he really have been a friend to Duo and to Trowa if he was.  This is bullshit, he wasn't ruthless, he wasn't callous, he wasn't cold.  He saved Trowa's life. He saved mom's life. He loved me. He loved her. He couldn't have been that bad.  

~~ to be continued ~~

AN:  Well?  What'd you think?  Is it still worth reading?  You really must let me know!  Sorry (or maybe not) about the major angst fest.  Please be so knd as to drop me a line and let me know what you think of it.  It'll be a few chapters more at this same slow pace before we begin to wrap things up.

Write me at _BadMomma64@aol.com_

Disclaimer:  Much to my chagrin, I don't own them.


	4. Chapter 4

The Journal, Chapter 4

By BadMomma

Notes at the bottom.

… thoughts

***** . . . ***** "live" action that takes place while she's writing her journal.

Journal Entry 11.23.AC214

Well today was another enlightening day. Or maybe enlightening isn't the right word, interesting and fact-filled might be more appropriate.  I swear if I keep having days like this I think I'll croak.  The conversation with Duo that just a few days ago I had been so looking forward to, was finally going to happen.  Only things had changed, I had thought to ask him about why he thought my father had left, but now it seemed my focus had changed. Who was the real Heero Yuy?  Was he the man from the pictures and vids that seemed so happy and loving or some ruthless war machine?

When I got up this morning the house was empty.  Hilde had left a note saying she was taking the kids to the park and then they were going to her mom's for the afternoon; they'd probably be gone all day.  Duo had scribbled a note at the bottom of hers saying he had some errands to run but that he'd be back by noon with some lunch, so I should wait for him.  That gave me some more time to think about what transpired yesterday.  The word 'ruthless' kept running through my mind. I hadn't figured out how to broach the subject with Duo yet when I ran out of time.  I had barely had enough time to take a shower and finish getting dressed when I heard him arrive.  He called out to me that I should hurry before the food got cold or he ate it all.  He's such a child sometimes  

He was almost done setting up the spread when I got to the kitchen, so I said hello and went to get some utensils for us to eat with.  As I walked back to take a seat, he grabbed my shoulder from behind and asked if I was OK, that he'd been worried about me all night.  He knew I hadn't gone to sleep 'til really late because he'd heard me typing in the wee hours of the morning when he'd gone for a 'mid-night bathroom break'. I realized at that point that I wouldn't have to worry about finding some way to bring it up, he just had. Thinking about it now, I wonder if he arranged for Hilde and the kids to be out of the house so we could talk freely? That would be a Duo kind of thing to do.  We sat down to eat and I started to tell him some of what Trowa had said and how I was confused about it.  I asked why no one had ever said anything like that before and I asked him if they'd all just been lying to me so that I wouldn't think badly of my father, a man I had never known.  He said that no they hadn't been lying; that my father really was a nice guy and that he had loved us very much. He and my father had been pretty good friends and from his point of view it just hadn't seemed necessary to go into what he was like at the beginning.

He seemed a bit uncomfortable, as if he didn't know what else to say, or maybe he didn't really want to.  So I asked him point blank, "Would you describe him as ruthless, back then, during the wars?"  I think that caught him by surprise, because he almost choked on what he was eating.  After recovering from the shock, he mulled it over a bit and then started talking.

"I wouldn't say he was ruthless I'd say he was a bit 'psycho'.  Well, not a bit, a lot. You know the first time we met – though the word 'met' is stretching it - he had a gun pointed at your mother.  If I remember the story correctly it was the second time he had threatened her and they had only met a couple of days before!  I decided to defend her, little did I know that – for whatever reason – she was already gaga for him and would actually stand between him and the gun pointed at him.  She actually got mad at me for shooting him. Go figure! Took me a while to figure them out!"

"But getting back to Mr. Psycho, within a few days of our first encounter he'd done more crazy things than I thought possible for one human being.  We had exploded our way out of a military hospital – I felt bad for landing him in there so I figured I'd bust him out - and he proceeded to plunge 50 stories to the earth without opening the parachute I had so graciously provided. Then, deciding to open it way too late, he crashed into and rolled down a hill and onto the beach, breaking a bone in his leg. He set the damned thing himself a couple of hours later, making himself a splint out of a couple of wrenches and some bandages.  Then after ordering me to shut up the whole day, not eating, not stopping for anything, he steals parts from my Gundam to repair his own and then flies off the next morning at the crack of dawn to complete a mission, after spending the whole night up.  You know, when he left that morning I still didn't know his name.  He was pretty weird, let me tell you."

"After that, we had kind of a little competition thing going for a while, or at least I did.  I was so pissed at him for having rummaged ole' Deathscythe for parts that I figured I'd kick his butt at our next encounter just to show him who he was dealing with.  Of course that didn't happen.  I mean, I was good, but by the time I arrived on the scene he'd almost finished mopping the place up and ended up saving my butt from a Mobile Suit."

"We kind of became unofficial partners for a while, not that I think he would have admitted to it at the time, but we ended up with the same targets on a few occasions.  We even went to a couple of the same schools, since we were teenagers; it was only normal that we be in school so we'd transfer around as the missions dictated.  You know, one time . . . " 

I interrupted him at this point saying that this sounded like he was telling me the same 'your father was a great guy' stories he'd always told me.  I wanted to know what it was about him that made Trowa say those things.  What he was really like, was he like a machine?  Not letting anything or anyone get in his way. Trowa made it sound like he would have killed his best friend to accomplish a mission.  I pressed him, would he have?  He hesitated for a while and I could see that he really didn't want to answer.  I was just about to get up and walk away, figuring that I'd never get a straight answer out of him when he spoke again.  "Yeah, he might have."  

My heart sank, I felt like I would die, this man I had come to adore had been a horrible person, but all the images in my brain still screamed at me – beautiful, loving, smiling, sweet, caring – I had only pictures and stories to go by, no actual memories.  Then it occurred to me that you never photograph someone when their angry or what would be the right word homicidal?  

" 'Might have' I said, ALMOST doesn't count!" He continued, obviously reading the distress on my face and this time he was dead serious. "Look babe, your old man was a piece of work.  Back then he WAS very much like a machine, his missions were what mattered the most to him, but they weren't the only things that mattered.  He hardly ever let his emotions show and he absolutely NEVER talked about them, but he had them.  And he had a conscience, which my buddy Trowa forgot to mention.  I know because he once came damn close to killing me, me of all people!"  

Hn. He sounded almost indignant, hadn't Duo just said that he'd shot my father

". . . he almost pulled the trigger, too. But he decided not to, a conscious decision. It was during that time that Trowa was infiltrating OZ, me and Deathscythe had been captured and it only made sense that he eliminate me, they would try to make me talk. Hell, they had already tried by the time he showed up.  He had every intention of shooting me, and when I saw him, gun pointed at me, I told him to go ahead and do it.  I figured if I was going to die, better it be at the hand of someone I knew and trusted than by some schmuck who was just out to make an example of me."

I gasped at what he said; it felt like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I couldn't believe what he was saying. How could he have encouraged my father to do something like that? But he continued as if I hadn't interrupted him.  

"He was right though, I was a danger to the overall goal.  I don't think I would have had the guts to go as far as he did if our positions had been reversed, but he was stronger than me that way.  He snuck in to where they were holding me, took out half the installation by himself and disabled the guards that were watching my cell.  Then when it came time to fish-or-cut-bait as they say, he didn't kill me. His conscience, or humanity or whatever you want to call it made him override that decision. You see babe, he really did live by the advice he gave Trowa, to follow your emotions.  You know, he didn't even have a set plan for getting himself out of there, he'd come to accomplish a task and if he survived it, then he would worry about escape."

"I never managed to get him to tell me what changed his mind that day, not in all the time we spent together over the years.  Every time I'd ask him about it he'd just say it had been the right thing to do at that moment, even after all that time he didn't like to explain himself. He probably just didn't want to think about all the stuff that had happened during the wars and all the things that we did.  War's not pretty and let me tell you we did some awful things when you take a step back and look at it.  Really awful.  It's not something you want to keep dredging up and thinking about. I spent a lot of time trying to get the images out of my head, for years I had nightmares about it. Still have them every once in a while but not as often, and now I have Hilde to help me deal with it, to a certain extent she knows what we went through. It couldn't have been any different for him or the rest of the guys either. But it was war and we did what we had to, he just handled himself different than us. He kept it all locked up inside, those thoughts and feelings would have interfered with his ability to do what needed to be done." 

I was still missing something crucial and I knew it, I just didn't know what.  So I prodded.  

I asked Duo to tell me more about him, the real him.  Trowa had said that he was like that because he had been made that way, what did he mean, 'made that way'.  Why was he so different from the rest of the pilots, what happened to him that he was so . . . I trailed off, because I couldn't think of the right word and I really didn't want to say ruthless.  

He must have picked up on my inability to describe it, because he spoke up again.  "Cold, rigid, relentless? Take your pick, I've heard them all.  I can't really answer that," he said "no one can but him.  He never gave me too many details about what it was like for him before Operation Meteor, but as we became friends over the years I did learn a few things about his past.  For one, he had no family to speak of, we kind of shared that, I mean, I don't know if he actually was an orphan, or if whoever brought him into the world just turned him over to Dr. J.  You've heard about the scientists, right? The guys that gave us our orders?"  I nodded and he continued.  "He had been trained as an assassin when he was very young, maybe 5 or 6, by this guy whose name I can't remember. God, father, what a horrible life you must have had.  I can't begin to imagine what that must have been like  I think he hooked up with J after that, but with J's death, the only person that knew anything about Heero's past was Heero himself and he didn't talk about it.  I can well imagine why though. He had scars from what they did to him, physical scars.  It's real easy to tell the difference between a battle wound and the scar left from a precise medical incision."

"After our missions we usually had some repair work to do on ourselves. The kind of injuries we got would raise way too many questions if we showed up at a hospital, so we usually holed ourselves up for as long as we could between missions and tended to our own injuries.   He didn't usually ask me to help him but there are just some things you can't do to yourself and I had asked him about the scars several times before he actually told me anything about it.  They'd done things to him, enhanced him he said, experimented on him, but he left it at that.  It must have been total hell.  I tried not to think about what they'd done to him, but I couldn't help but wonder when we were patching ourselves up about what he must have gone through." 

"See, all of us underwent some sort of intensive training that concentrated on our abilities.  After I hooked up with Professor G life took on a whole new meaning for me, I had certain 'skills', you could say, that had helped me survive on the streets.  Stealth was my specialty, I could get in and out of just about anywhere without being noticed, cracking security codes, picking locks and stealing stuff.  I had pretty decent fighting skills – from fighting off bullies, leaches and other street kids – but they put me through weapons, combat and endurance training.  They also trained me to be a pretty decent computer hacker, but nothing close to what Heero and Trowa could do. And piloting a Gundam was no easy task, that took a lot of training, too."

"But Heero, he was different.  He was way stronger than any normal 15 year old had a right to be. He could see and hear things that no mere mortal could. He survived explosions, beatings, crash landings and all manner of crazy things with just minor injuries usually. He could go for days with barely any sleep or food. He had a mind like a steel trap. He was a great strategist. He knew computers like no one else. He was an expert in the martial arts, combat, weapons, explosives; the list was endless. You name it, he did it and he did it well. He was the ultimate weapon, a superior soldier; he literally was a well-oiled machine. He was single-mindedly focused on the goal of destroying OZ and eliminating their control over the colonies, it was his mission.  Accomplishing the mission and not letting anything get in his way, that was Heero to a 'T'. So I guess if Trowa wants to call that ruthless, then yeah I guess he was.  I like to think he was just focused!"  

He was trying to lighten the mood again. I guess he had noticed I was frowning again because he came around to where I was sitting and he pulled me into a hug.  The tears fell from my eyes before I even realized it, I told him that I felt like I didn't know who my father was, even less than I had imagined. That I might never really understand anything about him and that was really very scary.  I told him about finding my mom's journals and how I had really begun to wonder about him, and what he was like.  And most importantly why he left us.  He hugged me tighter all the while whispering comforting words.  We stayed like that for a while.

I must have nodded off at some point because the next thing I remember, he was laying me down in my bed. He suggested that I take a nap, since I obviously hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before.  He promised that we could talk some more about my father, but that we had talked enough for the moment. I didn't argue with him and I let myself slip back to sleep.

Nothing too exciting happened the rest of the day. When I woke up a couple of hours later he was tinkering in the garage with some old electronics he had lying around and we just talked about anything and nothing, school, boys, music, the kids.  He did say one thing though that kind of stuck in my mind.  He noticed that I always refer to my father as 'father', that I never call him 'dad'.  He says he noticed because it always strikes him as being so formal and that he really didn't notice until his kids got a little older and talked about him to Hilde.  They always say 'dad said this' or 'dad did that'.  I noticed it too when Hilde got home with the kids and it struck me hard.  Maybe I don't call him 'dad' because I never really knew him, and you can't really be informal with someone you essentially have never met.  He's this person I've learned about from my family and friends, like you'd learn about some historical figure in school, a complete stranger.  I've even reread my previous journal entries and it's true, sad but true.  I wish I knew my father.

. . . I love you and Helena, I always will . . .

So here I am, the mystery of Heero Yuy still unsolved, for all I know he could be dead.  I still don't know anything really substantial about his past or why he would have left.  At least I know a little more about him and one thing I know for sure is that his friends loved him very much, as did my mom.  Still do, don't you mom  

Well, if they can think good things about him then I guess I need to have faith in their faith and believe in him too.  

Journal Entry 11.26.AC214

The last few days have been kind of nice, less stressful than the previous few had been.  I got in touch with Katie yesterday, and she's sent me my schoolwork, which I've almost finished up.  She says she and the girls miss me and can't wait 'til I get back.  We caught up a bit on what's been happening in her life and at school since I left.  Seems there's a couple of really cute new teaching assistants and our pregnant math teacher will probably be going on maternity leave before the end of the year rather the middle of next semester cause she's really big and really tired, so god only knows who'll be subbing.  Most importantly though, her father has taken an assignment in one of the L4 colonies and he'll most likely be leaving right after New Years.  She says that she and her mom will be staying on Earth at least 'til the end of the school year so she doesn't have to transfer, but I'm really pissed.  I'm gonna miss her, she's my best friend.  Well, I guess we'll just have to make the best of what time we have left together.

Yesterday Duo took me with him to the Preventers office. He said he wanted to show me where he did his best work and show me off to his friends there.  They're a real nice bunch of people, most of them are younger than Duo, but only by a few years.  Duo made it a point to tell me who was older than him and if they had participated in the wars or not.  When I asked him what side they'd been on he said it really didn't matter anymore, because if they were there then it meant they were interested in working to keep the peace and that's all that mattered now.  I even met two guys that knew my father, they had worked diplomatic security details with him when he was with the Preventers. Funny when one of them first saw me he commented under his breath to Duo that I could be "Yuy's twin", he laughed and introduced me as just that.  It's funny, most people who recognize the similarities between us usually take on a strange or suspicious look in their eyes; but not these guys, they shook my hand, asked if I wanted something to drink and offered the proverbial 'if you ever need anything . . .' It was nice to see that someone who owed me nothing was so willing to be kind, just because of my father.

Duo and I have had a few more conversations about my father and he's helped me to realize that maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself for not being able to come to grips with all the things I've learned in the last few days. It's good to know that Duo doesn't mind talking about him, after all, he was father's best friend, and sometimes I don't feel comfortable talking to mom. I'm always so afraid she's going to zone out or get all sad, and that's the last thing that I'd want to do to her.  Duo made me promise that no matter what, I would always come to him if I needed to talk. He looked kind of sad when he said it, I never realized until just now how much he misses him.  Maybe it'll be the same for me and Katie, except that I'll know where she is and we'll be able to talk whenever we want to. 

why did you have to leave

I talked to Hilde about father a bit, too.  She and Duo had been working and living together as friends off and on since just after the wars; I didn't know this but they didn't actually get romantically involved until around the time that I was born.  For about a month she and Duo had just been working the salvage business when Lady approached them about working for the Preventers.  It seems the Preventers wanted to establish a base in L2 because, though conditions were improving on this colony, it was still one of the poorest and still a hotbed of illegal activity.  Because they were both familiar with the area, the Preventers figured they'd be great candidates to take a lead role in the operations here. They accepted the offer and soon Duo found himself traveling a great deal on assignments, Hilde mostly stayed put and handled the start up of the new office.  She says that one day Duo showed up after one of his assignments with my father in tow.  

After the war, father had gone off by himself for a few months but he'd been keeping track of everybody's whereabouts, especially Duo's and my mother's. When Duo 'got into a tight spot' with some aspect of the assignment, father had popped out of nowhere and offered to help him. They apprehended some major players in a smuggling ring thanks in part to the information father had provided. Duo convinced him to come back with him and join the Preventers.  Father ended up staying here with Hilde and Duo for a while, before getting himself reassigned to Earth so he could watch over mom more closely.

Hilde had never met him before that day[1] and she says he was kind of uptight and grumpy the whole time he was with them, at first she thought that he absolutely hated her until Duo explained that that's just the way he was.  She says she's never really understood how the two of them could have been such good friends since they were so different, but that there was no denying that they were.  It turns out that they had even shared an apartment together for a few months right before mom was kidnapped and the whole Mariemaia thing happened. Hilde doesn't have too many details about what they were doing at that time because in that year between the wars she hadn't really seen Duo much.  He'd been running some sort of 'delivery service' – by the way she said it I'm not sure what exactly that means – and there had been some little scuffle involving all the pilots, mom and an old friend of somebody's.  After that was settled, it seems father needed a new place to stay and Duo offered to let him stay with him. 

That must have been interesting. Duo is a total mess – this I've seen this with my own eyes - and from what I've heard, father was pretty much a neat-shit.  She says he used to tell Duo off all the time when he was with them, he'd tell Duo that Hilde was a saint for putting up with his mess and that he was the living equivalent of a hurricane.  While he was here, they had put a small bed into Duo's room for father to sleep on and whenever Duo's mess spilled into the square footage that encompassed what father believed to be his share of the room a ruckus would ensue, mostly in Japanese too because apparently when he was perturbed enough to curse, he did it in his native language.  Hilde says she learned enough Japanese curse words to last her a lifetime.  She even taught me a few! 

damn, the vid-phone's ringing, don't want the kids to wake up, who the hell is calling at this hour? it's almost midnight.

*****

"Hello?  Oh, Trowa!"

"Helena!  Hello, I, sorry, I hope I didn't wake you, I didn't expect . . . I don't mean to be rude but, is Duo there, I need to talk to him."

"No, sorry.  I offered to watch the kids so he and Hilde could get out by themselves for a while. Do you want to call him on his wireless[2] – I can give you the number?"

"I have the wireless, I'll try him there.  Be sure to tell him that I called, in case I can't reach him.  He'll know how to get a hold of me."

"Sure, will do.  Hey, are you alright?"

"Yes, thanks. I just need to discuss some business with him.  By the way, I wanted to apologize . . ."

"Apologize? What for?"

"For being inconsiderate the other day.  I didn't mean to upset you; I just didn't stop to think how what I said would affect you.  I care very much for your father and I really do hope you understand that what I said in no way takes away from the fact that he was a great guy and he loved you very much."

"It's OK, Trowa.  I was kind of shocked at first, and . . . well it was a bit much to take in all at once.  But, I do appreciate you being honest with me."

"Thank you.  Well, I have to go now.  Take care."

"Bye."  

OK, that was kind of weird. Better leave a note for Duo.  Hn, I wonder what that was all about?

*****

Let's see, where was I, oh yes, Hilde taught me some Japanese curse words.  Well, mom'll probably have a cow if she finds out! Hey, maybe I should check to see if school offers Japanese as a foreign language credit, that'd be cool, and then I'd have something else in common with him.  I'll call Katie tomorrow and ask her to check for me. Maybe I'll call mom, too, haven't talked to her in a few days and she probably misses me.

OK, I think that about covers the important points for the last couple of days. I'm yawning again, which means it's time to hit the sack cause tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I have to help Hilde shop for some huge meal we'll be cooking in a couple of days called damn, what did they call it – oh yeah Thanksgiving.  Some old American holiday that Duo insists they celebrate ever since they started a family.  It actually sounds like fun – although heavy on the carbohydrates!  Turkey (which he has to special order from Earth cause apparently they don't raise turkeys here in the L2 sector), mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, stuffing, bread, cranberry sauce, and a few other things I can't remember.  To hear Duo talk about it you could probably feed 50 people with what we're planning to cook. Her parents are coming and so are a couple of the Sweepers so it should all turn out real nice.

~~ to be continued ~~

 [1] Please, no tomatoes from aficionados (like me) of the "stay true to the series" ideal.  In my opinion, she would have been out of it when she was brought back to Peacemillion and wouldn't have actually met him. Not that he was all that sociable anyway. :)

[2] Not sure what the GW-era equivalent of a cell phone would be called.

AN:  Well, to those of you interested (all 4 who have written) sorry for the delay.  We're coming close to the end, a few more chapters maybe and that's it (?).  Special thanks to GalynSolo for proofing; and to my regular proofer, LooNeGirL117.  Thanks for reading and please, please, please let me know what you think. If there's not much interest I'll kill it quickly.  Write me:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer:  Sadly, I don't own them.


	5. Chapter 5

The Journal, Chapter 5

By BadMomma

… thoughts

***** . . . ***** "live" action that takes place.

Journal Entry 11.29.AC214

Well, I'm on my way home now, actually, not directly because we're stopping over in the L4 sector to pick something up, but then we're heading home.  I wonder if we'll get to see Quatre while we're there? Duo is coming with me. He wasn't supposed to but something came up with regards to that call from Trowa the other day and he's heading back to earth with me to meet with Lady Une and take care of it.  I don't know what it is of course, it's not like I work for them or anything, but he seems a little tense, uptight, . . . perturbed, and I'm kind of worried about him. I don't think I've ever seen him this serious.  It's kind of funny actually, that serious look doesn't sit well on his face and his eyes look a lot darker – in the dark blue range - than they usually do. Of course it could just be the blue from his uniform that's making his eyes look darker.  I had thought it was weird that he'd wear his uniform to travel but he said it made things a little easier when he does.  Apparently, most the people in the colonies really respect the Preventers and are overly helpful and accommodating when he wears it.  He said he doesn't really like to take advantage of his position in the organization like that but that it does make getting what you want a lot easier, even if it is just a little peace and quiet to get some work done – which he's doing right now.

OK, so, the last couple of days were actually lots of fun.  Thanksgiving dinner and all its preparations were a lot more interesting than I had thought they would be.  Hilde and I had a great time shopping for all the food, just the two of us.  Her mom took the kids and agreed to let them spend the night and Duo was at the office all day;  we on the other hand, started the day by having a late leisurely brunch after dropping the kids off and then set off to 'buy the goods', as she put it.  We got most of what we needed at the local grocery store, but she wanted to go to a fru-fru farmer's market to get fresh herbs and spices, something she says she only does on special occasions.  That turned out to be a real treat because it meant that we had to go a bit out of the way and since we were already going out of the way, she decided to drive me through the section of town where she and Duo originally lived in.  It's pretty much become an industrial area, though according to her it's not much different than when they lived there during and after the wars.  

Their little prefab house is no longer there, they were all taken down to make room for small apartment and office buildings of more solid construction when many of the lots were bought by the larger corporations that came in to help out the economy after the war. She showed me the yard that used to be theirs and where some of their Sweeper friends still live and work.  And when I say yard I don't mean grass and flower beds, I mean junk – oh sorry – salvage materials.  She says it used to piss Duo off all the time when she referred to it as junk, but a rose is a rose, right? Anyhow, the salvage business is still going strong here after all these years and she said that driving through that neighborhood brought back some good memories.  She still comes back frequently since she's now the official, or unofficial, accountant for most of their old junk-buddies, but she says she wouldn't want to live here again, because along with the good memories there are some bad, too.

As for the dinner itself, that was interesting. We hadn't quite finished setting up the table and getting all the food ready before the guests started arriving.  Before we knew it we had like ten people in the kitchen and that didn't include kids.  Hilde's parents arrived first with the kids and then Howard's niece and her husband arrived with their kid – one of the cutest little boys I seen in my life, next to Duo's boys. At first it was nice to have so much help, but pretty soon it became obvious that there were too many people in the kitchen and dining room area and Hilde promptly informed the men that their job was to keep themselves and the children entertained elsewhere until everything was ready.  While we did have a few repeat visits from the boys, mostly because Solo and Howie kept chasing the other little boy around the house threatening to cut his hair with a dinner knife, we were able to finish setting things up without too much delay. As soon as the other guests arrived we settled in for a real stuff-fest. I swear, I think I ate more in that one sitting than I usually eat in a whole day.

Switching on to other matters, I talked to Katie the other day and she checked into the languages being offered at school.  Seems they do offer Japanese and hopefully I'll be able to sign up for it next year.  I think two years of high school French is probably enough and since mom knows how to speak French too, she could help me practice at home.  That should be interesting, we could designate a 'Vive la France' day and speak to each other only in French one day a week, that should keep me pretty fluent.  I hope she doesn't mind about the Japanese, though.  I didn't mention it to her when I called because she looked a little sad and I didn't want to bring it up, it might have led to other things and, well, I don't want to cause her any pain.  I'm glad I'll be home soon, she looks like she needs a little cheering up and maybe I can get Duo to help me with that. I hope he has time to

**********

"Hey, what ya doing there kiddo?  I thought you said you'd finish all your school work" Duo interrupted.

"Yeah I did, actually I was just writing in my journal.  I haven't had a chance to in the last couple of days and I just wanted to keep it up to date.  Not much point to having one if I don't take the time to write, huh?"

"Well, yeah, but you looked so into it I thought maybe something was wrong.  Are you writing about your secret crush or something, is there some guy I need to knock some sense in to when I get you back home?"  His grin grew wide and his eyes started to sparkle just as one eyebrow began to wiggle suggestively.

"Right! No, Duo there's no one you need to knock any sense in to, thank you.  But even if there was, I don't think I'd want you to threaten some poor unsuspecting fool into liking me.  Hn, Baka!"

"Hey!  No fair!  I'm your Uncle Duo.  If your gonna call me that then you should. . ., should show me some respect and call me, Mr. Baka, Uncle Baka, or go for broke and call me Baka-san."  He half-bowed as he offered that last possible title making me giggle a little. He hesitated a moment and then that goofy-I'm-so-hurt grin turned a little serious then he wrinkled his nose and said, "plus, you sound just like your old man when you do that. It's kind of unnerving."

"Oh uh, sorry Duo, I mean, I didn't mean to . . ."

"Aw, don't worry kid, I'm not mad or anything, it's just, well it's weird how you do that sometimes, and well, I was just thinking. . ." He trailed off and looked to be considering something important when he piped up again.  "Aw never mind. So? If you're not writing about your love life, then what are you writing about? Hmmmm?  I promise I won't tell a soul!" He started to inch over in the seat as if he was trying to discreetly – but overtly - glance at the screen. "Not your mom, not Hilde, . . . " the list would have gone on endlessly had I not interrupted him.

"Duo you're not supposed to read other people's journals, they're personal. And private."

"You read your mom's, didn't you?" Again with the eyebrow, what is it with him, can't he keep a straight face for any reason. "Just teasing!  I know you didn't purposely go looking for that information, and I can't say that I blame ya'.  Your mom is kind of reserved most of the time and that can't be easy.  I mean, I just wish . . ."

"I know. You just wish he hadn't gone away, just wish you knew where he was, just wish you knew what he was doing, just wish you knew that he was ok, just wish you knew what made him leave, . . . yeah I know, I wish that too.  Damn, I just wish I knew if he was even alive.  I think even that would help a bit." God, I'm depressing myself.

He grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Look kid I don't know if this is much of a consolation, but I understand, I really do and you don't have to keep it to yourself, you know.  And I know he's out there, too, he's alive.  I can't say how or why, but I know, so trust me." 

What was that? Had he been in touch with my father?  "Duo, have you –"

"Oh no.  I didn't mean it that way.  Look, I. . . , I just know that he's alive and you have to trust me. I'm right."

We were just silent for a few minutes, letting that cryptic little exchange sink in. Then all was back to normal.

"So, you glad to be heading home?  I know your mom missed you something awful.  She said it was terribly quiet at the house without you and that she couldn't wait 'til you returned."

"You talked to her? When?"

"I called her before we left.  I talked to Noin yesterday and she said that she was all happy/sad you were coming home. I had to let her know she didn't need to come get you because I could drive you home and that we'd be getting back a little later than originally planned."

"Which reminds me Duo, what are we going to L4 for? If you can tell me, that is.  Will we get a chance to visit Quatre, that's where he lives, right?"

"Actually, he does live in L4, but not where we're going.  And it's not 'what' we're going there for, it's 'who' we're going there for."

"'Who?'"

"Yeah, 'who'.  We're picking up Trowa, he's coming with me to meet with Une." 

"But wasn't Trowa in L2, I thought the circus stuck around for a few weeks before moving on. It's only been about a week since I saw him."

"They weren't on L2 the day you saw him, he just came to see you.  I thought you knew that."

"No." I had no idea "But, I wouldn't have thought Trowa would want to be seen with you in uniform and all. I mean, wouldn't that blow his cover or something?"

"Blow his cover? He's not secret ops or anything like that.  He does what you might call 'data gathering'. It's just this latest thing is important and Une wanted to meet with him face to face. No biggie, nothing to worry about. Well, maybe I should let you get back to your journal. I'll just watch the stars go by, plus we should be landing soon."

Yeah right, no biggie.  That's why you've got that look on your face again. OK, um, where was I

ATTENTION PASSENGERS, WE WILL BE ARRIVING AT THE SHUTTLE PORT IN APPROXIMATELY 15 MINUTES.  PLEASE BE SURE TO GATHER ALL PERSONAL BELONGINGS ONCE THE SHUTTLE HAS COME TO A COMPLETE STOP AT THE GATE.  CONNECTING FLIGHT DATA IS AVAILABLE AT THE BOARDING DESK AND OVERHEAD SCREENS FOR PASSENGERS CONTIUING THEIR TRAVELS.  WE HOPE YOU HAD A PLEASANT FLIGHT.  PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK YOUR FLIGHT ATTENDANT FOR TOURIST INFORMATION ON THIS COLONY, ENJOY YOUR STAY.

Well, no time to finish now, I guess I'll finish on the way home

**********

Damn, why doesn't this thing boot up more quickly? The heck with cheering mom up, I've got more important things to think about

Now I'm intrigued. Not that I think I'll ever find out exactly what's going on because I'm just a kid, but this is killing me.  Maybe, just maybe, a little bit of my family's cloak-and-dagger past was genetically passed on to me.  So here I am writing this down, making sure to record all the details and trying to decipher the latest puzzle with my feeble little brain.

We got off the shuttle and Trowa was waiting for us.  We had about an hour and a half to kill before the next flight so we went to some 'bar & grill' in the terminal.  Trowa and Duo kept whispering at each other and mumbling half statements while we ordered and looked for a table.  It got so annoying that I asked them if they wanted me to get lost for a while so they could talk and of course they both vehemently declined – well Duo was vehement, Trowa was not quite that!  Anyhow, we ate and drank in silence for a few minutes and I excused myself to go use the facilities, it's not like I needed to, I just couldn't stand the silence and it was pretty obvious they needed to talk about something.  On my way back, as I was about to round the corner of the wall separating our table from the hall to the restrooms, I overheard part of their conversation.  

Trowa was asking Duo if 'she' was sure 'it' was from 'him' and if he'd seen 'it'.  Duo answered that no he hadn't seen 'it' yet but that he would when they got to earth and he was pretty sure that 'she' would know if it was 'him' or not.  In answer to that Trowa said that it was weird the way these two things had come to happen at the same time, was it possible that 'he' had forgotten about sending 'it'.  Duo didn't seem to think that it would have mattered, especially not when what Trowa had discovered was so important, plus they didn't know when 'he' had sent the information to Trowa anyway.  Trowa agreed and said that he wished he had kept an eye on those 'accounts' more closely, it had been quite a while since anyone had used them and the few people aside from 'him' that had ever used them hadn't been providing Trowa any valuable information in the last few years.

Duo asked him if he was sure it was 'him'.  I guess Duo had asked that question before – and more than once – because I could hear the strain in Trowa's voice when he said yes, he was practically hissing.  There were certain code words, he said, that he had only used with 'him' and there was no mistaking it.  He'd never been sure about the other transmissions, but this one left no doubt.  He said he even thought that maybe 'he' wanted him to know who was sending it and that's why this transmission had such clear evidence of who sent it. Duo seemed to snort at that comment, and that he couldn't believe Trowa hadn't said anything about those previous transmissions before.  Trowa apologized, apparently not for the first time either, saying that the previous transmissions had been obtuse in their use of the codes and that it was only natural for him not to seriously give it consideration.  At that Duo reacted a little more loudly, which elicited a few stares from the people sitting at nearby tables, he asked how Trowa could be so insensitive, if they had been from 'him' they might have been able to do something about it, and didn't 'they' deserve to know?  Now Trowa was nearly growling at him, he told Duo that he had absolutely no intention of hurting 'them' any more than he already had, what good would it have done 'them' to know that the messages MIGHT have been from 'him', it's not like 'he' had left a map with his current position.

It occurred to me that it might be time to break up this little conversation, in part because it was starting to sound like some overly confusing soap opera plot and in part because people were really starting to stare.  Just as I was making my decision to come out from behind the wall Duo said the words that left me paralyzed with fear and confusion.  He said 'Sorry man, I guess you're right, they probably couldn't handle something like that again, specially not Relena.'

_. . . Forgive me, I never meant to hurt you . . ._

So, here I am, sorting the puzzle pieces.  I'm left with only one conclusion as I read this over and recall the flow and tone of the conversation.  If mom is 'she', and who else would it be; then 'they' must be her and me.  That leaves only one possible option for who 'he' must be.  The big question now is, what is 'it'?  What was going on that was so important that he so obviously let them know that he was the one sending it. And is the transmission he sent Trowa somehow related to this 'it' that Duo had not yet seen, but mom had? God, I'm confusing myself!

One last update before going to bed 

Lady Une sent someone to meet us at the port with a car to get us where we needed to go.  When we got to the estate, Duo had to practically drag Trowa out of the Jeep to get him to come in and talk to mom.  It was kind of tense when they first saw each other but I think it went alright after that because they stayed talking for quite a while in her office.  They left right before dinner, Duo said they really didn't have time to stay and that he and Trowa needed to get some information to Lady.  I knew what it was he was talking about but decided not to lead on, I didn't want him to know I had overheard any of their conversation, I was embarrassed that I'd deliberately eavesdropped and didn't feel up to admitting it.  They both said goodbye warmly – I even got a hug from Trowa.  Duo promised to come to visit at least once before leaving earth and mom and I watched them drive away. We had a quiet dinner alone and talked mostly about my little vacation on L2, I avoided telling her about my talks with Trowa and Duo.  

I was feeling a bit guilty about not telling her and as we headed to our rooms I blurted out that I had found and read her diaries.  She looked a bit shocked at first and then seemed to consider it.  She said that she didn't really mind and asked me if I had any questions about what I had found.  I told her that I had asked Duo and Trowa to tell me about father and the way he was before they had gotten together.  That I wanted to try and understand what made him do what he had done, what all those cryptic things in the note had meant.  She asked me if it had helped and said that I could have come to her too if I'd wanted.  I knew she was trying to be supportive so I apologized for not trusting her enough to ask.  At that she laughed and said that it was incredible how much like him I was, how I could have developed his odd little personality traits with such accuracy when he wasn't even around, was beyond her comprehension.  I didn't understand what she meant, what little personality traits? 

She said it was just like him to try and figure things out on his own – when it came to matters of people and human nature – that he didn't understand, and then only after struggling to piece the information together and formulating a hypothesis would he ask anyone outright.  Again she said that I could ask her anything I wanted to, but not tonight because she was extremely tired and needed a good night's rest.  Before stepping into my room she pulled me into a hug and said she knew she had said it before and that in the end it was all she could say to reassure me, but that I should never doubt that he loved us.  And still does.  

Those words have been repeating themselves in my head ever since she said them.  Does she know about the transmissions Trowa got, do they have something to do with the 'it'.  They were both apparently from him and she's seen 'it', did he send her some kind of message as well?  She didn't mention 'it', so maybe I'll never know.  Maybe I should tell her that I overheard what Duo and Trowa said at the port, but then, if they haven't told her maybe it'll only cause more problems.  I don't know what to do, maybe I'll just sleep on it.  I can't think anymore right now.

Journal Entry 11.30.AC214

As I sit here in my room contemplating the last few weeks and the things that I have heard and seen, I wonder if I'll ever have enough answers to my questions.  I've been home less than a day and I find myself almost as confused as when I left, no more sure of what I'm looking for than when I started this journal.  At least I have some answers to the mystery of who he was, but now there are even more questions, and I fear that I may never get the answers.

_Relena,_

_I'm sorry I can't come back.  Forgive me, I never meant to hurt you._

_I love you and Helena, I always will, but this time I cannot return._

_Tell the others not to look for me you know it will be futile._

_Maybe Zechs was right after all, maybe I'm not good for you._

_Heero_

I read it again and I still don't know why?  There's something about this message that hasn't made sense from the first time I saw it.  It was there with her journals, tucked in between the discs like just some loose scrap of paper, I almost missed it.  

I wish I knew.  

There's no date on it but I know when he sent it, I'm not exactly sure why she printed and kept it, but it looks like she may have carried it around with her for a while.  Aside from being old, it looks handled – frayed a bit at the edges, with permanent creases from being folded and unfolded.  Maybe she carried it to remind her of him, maybe she just wanted something of his close. She made an entry the day she received it, the ones leading up to it had almost begun to seem desperate.  

He was overdue.  He'd filed the final mission report at least a month earlier and as yet had sent no word.  She wrote about spending days running to the window every time she heard a car pull up at the estate, she'd call Lady daily to see if there had been any word.  She even contacted the ex-pilots to see if they knew anything. Duo, Quatre and Wufei had no news, she never got a hold of Trowa. Her position in the government gave her the resources necessary to access hospital databases on all the colonies and on earth, but nothing in them even hinted at someone like my father. She was becoming depressed, maybe he had died in a car accident, maybe he had been assaulted and left for dead -  a John Doe – in a morgue somewhere.  But no, not him, he was what had she called him the perfect soldier.  Not Heero Yuy, the boy who had survived the self-detonation of his own Gundam, the boy who had managed, against all odds, to escape an exploding Libra and fly ahead of it to destroy the final pieces so that the earth would not be destroyed.  Not the boy who survived all the pitfalls of war and escaped relatively physically unscathed.  Where was he and why had he not returned?

He had missed my second birthday, there was a brief entry that day.  I know she did something for me but I don't know what, all she wrote was that I had asked were he was and that she hadn't really known how to answer.  There are no pictures or vids, no mention of who was there with her.  I've never really asked, maybe I should, not that it really matters anymore.  He wasn't there and that is what is important.  The note came two days later.  

He hacked into the government network, found her address and took control of her computer.  She wasn't looking at the screen as the message came up, she only caught a glimpse of movement as he signed his name and released control.  There it was, the contact she had been longing, but it was so brief and not at all what she had hoped for.  ". . . it is worse than anything I imagined . . ." she wrote.  He was not dead, but it would have the same result.  She would never see him again, she knew it, she knew him. She was frantic, she called on every resource that she could, but no one was able to trace the transmission point, she didn't really expect that to work, he was too good at what he did. She called the ex-pilots again, told them of the message and begged them to help her.  There had to be something wrong and she had to know what is was.  Knowing the nature and details of his last assignment, Wufei went into space within a week, he spent the next three months trying to track my father down without any success.  On their own accounts both Duo and Quatre put all their effort and energy into trying to find him and ended up with nothing. He had vanished. Even Milliardo helped because he too had disappeared without a trace for over a year after the destruction of the Libra.  He knew how to do it and should therefore have an idea of what my father would have needed to do.  The result was the same. Nothing…, no one…, nowhere…; always the only words. If only she had gotten to Trowa, maybe things would have been different.

The next few entries took a downward spiral.  They were short entries, not much substance, negative results to searches, negative thoughts, despair and depression;  but never a single recrimination.  Why wasn't she angry at him?  She only seemed capable of concern, for him, for the man she loved and that she would never see again. She kept writing the same words  ". . . I don't think I can bear it . . ." ". . . how will I explain it to Helena . . ." " . . . what could have happened . . ."  She was so sure that he would never return, never is such a long time.  She never doubted that he wouldn't return and it seems she was right, it's been thirteen years. Within months her journal entries dwindled, they were fewer and farther between, always the same sentiments, always the same words, ". . . never again . . ." ". . . I miss him so . . .".  And then they stopped, the disk wasn't full, I think she just abandoned all hope.

I know now that he was different before they got together, before he found love. So what could have happened to him that would make him think he couldn't come back to us.  She loved him unconditionally, he had to have known that; she had known him back then, when he was cold, hard and unfeeling.  She was responsible for bringing him back to life in a matter of speaking, for cleansing his soul, for helping him find happiness.  Was it something from his little known past that had reared its ugly head and condemned him to return to a life of solitude, and condemned us to a life without him.

And now.  Now he has made his presence known to his friends, after all this time he has made obvious contact even though it's not direct.  What could have happened to make him change his mind.  It's not like he's come back or even told anyone where he is or what he's doing.  Apparently he's really only hinted that he's behind whatever important information Trowa has.  But why?  Why break his self-imposed exile?

I fear that I'll never know my father, that I'll never fill the void that lives within me, that I will never learn why he left us. I pray to whatever gods are listening that they have pity on me, that they give me that which I deserve.  My father.

~~ to be continued ~~

AN:  I wrote the rough draft of this chapter (actually the 2nd journal entry) almost as soon as I started this little journey.  It has taken a turn or two that was not expected, but fit where things were going.  I will only take it as far as you want it to go, a few plot ideas have developed that my proof-reader (LooNeGirL117) would like me flesh out, but only if you want it.  Hopefully you're enjoying the read.  Comments and criticism are not only welcomed but desired, please write to let me know what you think about it:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer:  Alas, I don't own them.


	6. Chapter 6 - The Drive

The Journal, Chapter 6

Side story – The Drive

By: BadMomma

Notes at the bottom.

… thoughts

Trowa and Duo sat quietly as they pulled out of the Peacecraft Estate.  They had just spent an hour and a half with Relena, talking and watching.  What they saw had left them both in a mild state of shock. It would be a while before either of them would be ready to discuss it.  But that was all right, it would be almost two hours before they reached their destination, the Preventers Headquarters.  They weren't scheduled to meet with Lady Une until the next morning and the night was still relatively young.  

They had arrived at the estate earlier that evening with Helena in tow.  Duo practically had to drag Trowa from the jeep that HQ delivered to them at the space port, and it had been awkward when Relena first met them at the door.  Neither Relena nor Trowa were uncivil but it was plain to see that both were uncomfortable in each other's presence, and Duo knew all too well why.  If only Trowa had had taken his advice at any point in time in the last 13 years and made peace with Relena, they could have been friends.  Instead, Trowa's guilt had steadfastly kept them apart.  Duo knew it would have helped to heal the old wounds they both bore; but as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Duo was lost in thoughts of regret and wasted time when he realized that Trowa was trying to get his attention, he glanced quickly at the clock on the dashboard and realized that they had been driving for almost half an hour.  "Huh, what?  I'm sorry I didn't catch that."

"I said what did you make of it?" Trowa replied, still staring out the passenger's side, not even seeming to mind that Duo had not been paying attention.

Duo shook his head minutely, "I don't know T, I just don't know.  What do you think he was thinking?  I mean, it's pretty harmless, he seemed sincere, he even said that if Relena didn't think it was wise that he would understand if she didn't show Helena.  But… why now? After all this time?"  Duo seemed to loose sight of the road, visions of an earlier scene flashing briefly before his eyes.  Visions of his 'once' best friend, someone he hadn't seen in years.

_Heero steps away from the recoding device and sits himself in view of the lens, placing something on the floor beside him._

_"Relena.  Hello."  He shifts nervously in his chair, as if he can't seem to find a comfortable position.  _

_"I know this must come as a great shock to you and I'm sorry.  Sorry for forcing this upon you now, and sorry for leaving you the way I did then.  I will never be worthy of your forgiveness though, knowing you, I probably don't even have to ask for it.  I know you have forgiven me, you probably did long ago but I still feel that I don't deserve your kindness."_

_"I will make this as quick and as painless as I can.  The reason I am sending this recording is that I have a favor to ask of you.  I have been watching you and Helena for many years now and I must say that I am impressed.  Not that I ever doubted your ability to raise her well, but you have done an outstanding job on your own.  I am so proud – and envious - of you, and of the wonderful gift that is our daughter.  I know her fifteenth birthday was just yesterday and as it is considered by many cultures the beginning of adulthood, and it was such a significant age for us, I wanted to share a bit of it."  _

_"I know this is an extremely selfish thing for me to ask and if you don't want to do it then I fully understand.  Also, if you don't think she could handle it, though I doubt that, then I would respect your decision to withhold this from her.  What I want is for you to show her the second half of this recording.  It is addressed to her.  I expect you to watch it in its entirety and determine what to do."_

_"Please, do not feel obligated to play it for her if you think it will cause her grief.  That is not my intent, I just . . ."  He hesitated, shifting again in his seat, seemingly trying to find the right words. ".  . . just wanted to tell her that I love her.  Just once – if that's OK – once, that she could actually remember.  I can't imagine she remembers much about me at all, but . . . Well, you decide, either way I respect your decision and I appreciate that you're listening to me at all.  If you don't want to make the decision on your own, ask Duo what he thinks, I know he'll help and he'll do what's best for both of you.  Just like he always has. I couldn't have asked for a better friend and I'm glad that you two remained close.  Please tell him that for me, it would mean a lot, to me at least."_

_He leaned over to reach for what was on the floor next to him then he stooped.  "And Relena, thank you.  For everything, for loving and nurturing her, for teaching her to be strong and for loving me, the more I think about it the more I realize I didn't deserve you.  I do still love you and I am very sorry for what I've done."_

As if walking out of a fog, Duo suddenly realized that they had driven on in silence again.  He turned briefly to look at Trowa who was still looking out the window. "What about you?  What are you thinking?"

He replied calmly, at first not even turning from what held his interested gaze.  "A lot of things, actually.  A lot of things." It appeared that he would say nothing more and then he began again.  

"There's a lot that has me curious.  Like you, I'm wondering why.  Why now? OK, I can accept the whole, she's 15 thing but still, it's kind of weak, as far as timing is concerned. He obviously didn't have a problem getting the disk to her, he just sent it with a messenger service so he could have done it at any time.  Oh, you did remember to bring the pouch and the shipping slip right?"

"Yes mom!" Duo replied with a roll of the eyes.  

"Good, that'll help."

"Help?"

The green-eyed man continued, ignoring his friend's obvious question. "Here's the obvious stuff: he's been keeping tabs on them, and you apparently, so he's able to move around with out too much difficulty. He's got a place to live – or at least he has somewhere to touch down occasionally. He's still got great toys, the video camera with remote control, the laptop, and who knows what else he's got in the way of surveillance."

"Trowa, Heero's always loved electronics, that wouldn't change? What are you getting at anyway?"

"What I'm getting at is money. He must have some sort of income to keep him going.  That laptop is not the same one he used to have and if I'm not mistaken it's pretty new.  Did you notice the leather jacket on the back of the chair, looked pretty new and pretty snazzy, too.  I mean, he couldn't have had enough money when he left to support himself all this time could he? The Preventers pay pretty well, but not that well, right?"

"Not likely." Duo thought about it for a moment, "I know he had some money stashed from the war, OZ wasn't careful about their accounts and we all pilfered some to make repairs on the Gundams and get by, but not that much.  As for his expenses, he never was much of a big eater, he didn't buy much stuff when he lived on his own and what he did buy wasn't all that expensive. Except for his clothes, but even that he didn't have too much of, when he moved in with me and Hilde he only had a couple of bags.  I guess he could have stashed what he made working but that was only what, like 3 or 4 years, can't keep a guy going for as long as he's been gone."

"Right, so where'd he get the money?"

"Maybe he invested whatever he had saved and has been living off the interest ever since. He and Relena didn't buy a house cause they were living on the estate and he used one of the Preventers vehicles when he was working or one from the estate when he wasn't.  So its not like he had to spend much."

"So," Trowa did some quick math, " let's say he's been living on – what – 25K a year, that's kind of small but he could probably make it work.  He's been gone 13 years, 325K for the duration; take away what he had on hand, say 100K – if we're generous.  He'd have needed about 225.  That's just over 17 and a quarter a year.  You think he could have had enough to invest to make that happen."

Silence ensued as both men considered the implications.  If Heero hadn't been living off the interest of his investments then he would have had a job, which means somehow they should be able to trace him.

"By the way T, why did you ask Relena for a copy of the disk. You think the disk is somehow related to your messages from him?"

Trowa was now turned slightly in his seat, facing Duo and watching him.  "No, I don't think they're related, but . . . well I'm not sure.  And if you don't interrupt me again, I'll get to the reason I asked for the copy."

"Well, excuuuuse me.  I won't speak again until his highness grants me permission." An exaggerated wiggle of the head and he was practically laughing at himself.  "But, before you go on, call up HQ and make sure they got us our quarters, I want to take a shower and get settled in quick, it's been a long day!"

Trowa attempted to do as he was instructed, however he was not getting very far with the lieutenant on the other end of the phone.  After repeatedly trying to make the young man understand who they were and what they wanted Duo took the phone from him and proceeded to throw his weight around.  He spent the next ten minutes making the very nervous young man on the other end of the line even more nervous, but eventually got what they wanted.  Two rooms, across the hall from each other in the West dormitory, just two buildings down from where his visiting office was, and where they would be meeting with Une the next day.

Once that was settled, Trowa spoke up again, however he didn't seem to be returning to the previous line of conversation. "Duo, do you know anybody in the graphics and imaging department here?"

Caught off guard by the question, Duo started, "uh maybe, I'd have to see who's still around, I haven't really been over there in a while, why?  Does the circus need new posters or something?  You know the budget folks don't take too kindly to personal projects being funded by company dollars."

Trowa wondered if Duo would ever grow up enough to take things seriously? "No, you moron, I just need to have some work done on the disk and our laptops wouldn't have anything nearly sophisticated enough to do what I want."

"Oi! Watch it buddy", Duo feigned offense "talk like that will definitely get you NOT invited for tea and crumpets tomorrow!"

At that Trowa chuckled, "Oh yes baka, like you've ever eaten crumpets! Do you even know what crumpets are?"

"Look 'sweetie' those pet names are OK here in private, but don't go using them in public tomorrow, I have an image to uphold!"  He stopped mid rant to wonder where this was going. "So what do you need them to do anyway?" Trowa's reply left him wondering if any of their conversations would actually end in him knowing what they were talking about.

"Duo, do you remember that time you and I spent at Heero's apartment here on earth right after he left you and Hilde to try to get on Relena's security team?"

Duo thought back, "You mean the time we helped him paint or the time we almost got arrested?"

"Almost got arrested, what are you talking about?"

"Yeah, you remember that time Catherine broke her arm and you flew over from your tour of the Americas cause I was already here."  He waited for Trowa to show a sign of recognition and continued when he didn't get any.  "You know, we went to that bar I had heard about. . .  and some guy kept hitting on me cause he thought I was a chick. . . but when I convinced him otherwise we got into that little fight and they threw us out of the bar 'cause we left six rather large guys writhing on the floor in pain . . . one with Heero's shoe print on his bloody nose . . . Ring any bells?"

Realization had finally hit, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that part of the evening, you know Duo, grabbing a guy's hand and placing it on your crotch is not exactly what I would usually call 'convincing him otherwise' of your gender.  It's no wonder we got into that brawl."

"Well excuse me! I was really tired of TELLING him I wasn't a chick, I clearly had no boobs, my voice is way lower than any girl I'VE ever met, and his hands refused to stay away from my ass!  My tactic worked didn't it? He got the picture right quick, man, the look on his face was priceless!"

Trowa had to laugh, he was right, the guy's face had been priceless. "You know, that night must have broken a record for the most priceless looks in one evening.  I don't think the bouncers fully believed that the three of us had actually done all that damage on our own.  Oh and remember the look on the face of the old man at the liquor store when he asked us for ID and we all pulled out our Preventors' badges.  I thought his dentures were going to fall right out of his mouth."

Duo couldn't control the laughter that came out or the flood of memories that followed.  "Yeah that was great, I think he thought we weren't old enough to be buying the stuff."

"We weren't, you know.  Not nearly.  It's a good thing that those badges didn't have our ages on them." Trowa continued, but his tone turned slightly more serious, "Do you remember what else we did that night?"

Duo thought about it for a moment, not noticing the look he was getting from his passenger.  "Do you mean before or after we downed two bottles of tequila and three six packs of beer?"

Both the driver's and passenger's bodies shuddered briefly at the thought of the vile liquid, "Ugh, just thinking about tequila makes me sick.  You know, never I've never been able to even smell it again without the distinct desire to empty the contents of my stomach.[1]  But no, I mean after that.  When we were getting ready to go to sleep."  Now it was his turn to wait for a sign of recognition.  "Heero went to the bathroom and you and I decided to do a little redecorating? I was going to sleep in the hammock by the WINDOW and you were going to . . ."

"Yes, yes, I was going to sleep on the floor, in a sleeping bag. I thought I'd never have to do that again after the war!  And thank YOU very much for reminding me."

"Jeez Duo, you're not still bitching about that after all these years.  I won that coin toss fair and square, and we alternated nights on the hammock! Furthermore, might I point out that unlike me, your two skinny asses would have fit just fine on Heero's futon. He offered. You declined. We are NOT discussing this again!"

Duo huffed, yes after all those years it still bothered him – well, not really – actually he was having a good time reminiscing and he and Trowa hadn't shared this much banter in way too long. "Fine we'll drop it, but you didn't have to share a bed or cramped floor space with him during the war.  Do you know how annoying it is to have someone wake you up with an elbow or knee every time you move in your sleep.  Just 'cause he lays down in one position and sleeps like a corpse until it's time to get up doesn't mean it's normal.  And don't bring up the whole 'I took care of him after he self destructed' crap, cause Cathy told me long ago that you had a small pull out sofa in your trailer.  So no sympathy for you!!!!"

"It wasn't a pull-out SOFA it was more like a reclining chair!" the other protested.  None the less, both men broke into laughter, it had been too long since they had thought about those days, their friendships and the follies of youth.  Those first few years after the war, when everyone was trying to find a place for themselves, they had all had a moments like these.  Moments when they could finally act their age and those moments were priceless. But there had been a reason to go down this particular line of thought and Trowa meant to bring them back into focus. "So? Do you remember what we did then and why?"

Duo was a little confused.  "Come again?  What we did and why?  We just moved Heero's mysterious trunk in front of the window and put that nice Japanese screen he bought on top of it. I thought he was going to kill me when I almost drop the screen."

"Good, and do you remember why?"

"Why? 'Cause that screen was one of the few things that he'd paid a lot of money for!"

"Not why he was going to kill you, why we moved it", keeping his friend on track was trying work.

"Well, 'cause Mr. Anal had yet to discover the beauty of window treatments! No curtains, no shutters, no blinds.  You don't remember getting up with the sun that same morning because you hadn't arrived yet. Let me tell you, it wasn't pleasant to have first-morning light bouncing off those stark white walls of his at 6am.  Normal people don't like to get up at the crack of dawn!"

"Yes, Count Duo-acula, morning light is bad, but it wasn't that late in the morning when we did that, it was only about 3am.  Why did we move the screen, Duo?"  Trowa waited. 

No response, time to jog his memory. 

"Duo, the hammock was next to the window.  The one with no curtain, that faced those two tall buildings next to Heero's, the second one over had a huge red and…"

That did it. "Oh yeah, the red and blue neon sign! Yeah, I remember, you were complaining that it was making your headache worse than it already was.  But what has that got to do with anything?"

"Yes, well, this may just be wishful thinking but I think Mr. Anal may have returned to his old haunts."

"Come again?"  He knew he sounded like a broken record but Duo really wasn't sure where his friend was going with this.

"I think I saw the reflection of that sign on the screen of Heero's laptop while I was watching the recording.  It's been a while and it doesn't seem likely that it would be the same sign, but maybe if the folks in imaging can peel some of the layers off the disk we might be able to figure out what the sign says and track down where the recording took place. There was just something that seemed so familiar about the flashing reflection and it only occurred to me after we had left the estate.  And to answer your earlier question, that's one reason why I asked for a copy of the disk, so we could check it out."

Duo was dumfounded, could he be right?  It was almost unreal, could they finally track Heero down after all these years so easily. It didn't seem possible, unless of course - "You think he's become that careless?" The question stumbled out of him, he wasn't sure where his thoughts were taking him.

"Maybe not, but there were a few things that seemed odd or contrived about the set up." Trowa paused, he wasn't sure that he fully believed what he was going to say next.  "I think he… he might want us to find him. There are a couple of little things like the reflection on the laptop.  He was too good at not being found when he didn't want to.  Don't you think it would have occurred to him that the sign would reflect off the laptop. Yet there it was, the screen was facing the camera lens at just the right angle. "  Duo couldn't believe his ears, and he didn't want to let himself believe what Trowa was saying.

Trowa continued, replaying in his mind the oddities he remembered. "Did you notice all the other stuff on the desk behind him, it appeared to be piles of clothes and not the kind of clothes he used to wear, it looked like uniforms or something.  There were several shirts of the same color and slacks too.  I'd have to watch it again to be sure, but… and I think a pair of shoes – the black patton leather kind – but those were sort of behind the clothes so it was hard to tell."

Here the braided man interrupted, "what if he just reverted to his old habits and he's decided that shirts and slacks are the right thing to wear now that he's too old to be sporting spandex and tank tops?"

"Nope, don't think so.  Didn't you see what he was wearing in the recording.  If I'm not mistaken that was a linen shirt, just like he used to wear – post spandex of course – and a pair of jeans.  And why, if he had a remote for the camera was he moving to sit down after he started the recording, at first I thought he had been turning it on, but when he went to stop it between Relena and Helena's messages he just reached for the remote. If he could stop it with the remote then he could have started it with the remote.  Which means he was probably adjusting it to include something in the view of the lens.  I can't think of what it could be so I'll need to watch it again. That's the main reason I asked for a copy, I wanted to see it again and I didn't have the heart to her ask to play it again.  Oh, and either he went back to his old neighborhood or at least he's living in another industrial area because I'm almost positive that he made that recording in a converted warehouse – just like his old place."

Duo considered his friend's observations for a few moments, "You know, now that you mention it, why would he have left all that stuff on the desk behind him.  It's not like him to give away any information that he doesn't consider necessary, and he was too neat for it just to have been laying around cause it was laundry day. If there was something reflecting off the laptop, he'd have noticed it and closed it up.  I think you might be right, I think he wants us to look for him.  We should watch it again when we get to the dorms, and make notes of what we might have missed the first time around. To be honest I was just so shocked to see him that I didn't give anything else much thought. Man I'm hungry, what time is it?"  He checked the clock on the dashboard again, making note that they should be arriving at the base in just over 15 minutes. "Well, looks like shower and sleep will have to wait."

"I'm hungry too, Duo, you think the cafeteria's still open, we could swing by and get some sandwiches then head over to the dorms. There's a few things I'd like to check out on the 'net, too.  Do the dorms have network connections in them."

The grin that crossed the braided man's face was reminiscent of his days as Shinigami.  "Been a while since you've come to the base, hasn't it?  Nowadays it's deluxe accommodation suites all the way.  We can order pizza and sandwiches from the rooms, my friend, 24 by 7 and if it were earlier you could have a nice meal delivered from one of four restaurants on the base.  Full fledged docking stations with big screen monitors and plenty of auxiliary toys.  Multiple network connection points throughout the suite.  Decent sized conference table with four chairs AND full sized desk, each with a vid-phone.  And as for creature comforts:  Queen sized beds with goose down pillows.  Spare pillows, comforters, linens and towels for unexpected guests.  Full sized convertible sofa bed.  Shower massage spa and double sink vanity in the bathroom.  Spacious walk-in closet with a full length mirror on the door.  Multiple climate controls for your working and sleeping comfort.  Fully stocked snack bar and refreshments, code key accessed and billable to your division, of course.  But hey! We're from off-planet, so we get a little leeway.  So what's the plan?"

Trowa had to admit he was impressed.  The last time he'd stayed at the base on official business had been about 10 years ago and the set up had been almost primitive, more like the dorm rooms they had frequented during the war.  Small, cramped and musty.  This sounded better than some of Quatre's small country houses!  "Well I think we need to watch the video again first.  I might have missed a few things and a second pair of eyes will help with that.  I'd also like to check out that messenger service that brought Relena the disk, see if they're owned by a parent company, check out their local branches and figure out which one was likely to have made the delivery.  Unfortunately that's about it for tonight."

"Alright, I'll order us some dinner and you start on the disk first. Once we've got that set up, I'll look into the messenger service.  But we're also going to have to come up with an explanation and a mission plan for Une."

Now it was Trowa's turn to be confused. "A mission plan, what do you mean?  We're just meeting with her to discuss the data Heero sent me and how I know it's from him.  There's not much else to that, it's not likely you or I are going to be assigned to do the infiltration of the group or security for the people who are on the hit list."

"Trowa, do you really think that Une would pass up the opportunity to find Heero again.  Thirteen years or not, he was the best agent she had!  If there's any chance that we can find him she'll want to and if we have her blessing, then we'll have unlimited access to Preventer resources… like the imaging department.  And we'll need some help from the database people to track down that flashing neon sign, if it is a sign. And since we won't be doing the security or infiltration, it'll only make sense for us to lead the investigation.  Things are pretty quiet in L2 right now so I can dedicate some time to this without compromising my directorial duties and officially you're a consultant.  Let's plot out a course of action and present it to her after we cover the data tomorrow.  Plus, she'll probably want to see the recording before we go ahead with any of this and I don't think Relena would mind."

"You're right I hadn't thought of that.  I think it'll probably be best if I stay on the base tomorrow and work with the imaging people and you track down the delivery service.  After all, you're more familiar with the area than I am.  If we get any breaks, we'll contact each other and go from there. D'you bring a spare uniform? I think it'll expedite any investigating you do out on the street tomorrow."

"Yeah, yeah.  Did I mention that we have a 1-hr dry cleaning service on the base, too?"

By now the two men were pulling into the base.  They flashed their IDs, were waved in and headed for the West quadrant and some semblance of home.  Feeling a little better with themselves than they had at the beginning of this trip, the conversation turned to less pressing matters.

"So T, do you know exactly how many kids Quatre has, you know I can't seem to remember and I think one of them has a birthday coming up?"

"Jeez Duo, that's easy, just remember the year he got married and then subtract one. Eight, they're on number eight." He answered rather smugly.

"Tell me something, have you been talking to Wu lately?  He said the same thing the other day!  How the hell am I supposed to remember the year Quatre got married? I have to stop and think about mine."

"Oh the year is easy, Quatre and a half."  

A look of utter confusion took up residence on Duo's face.  "Say what?"

"Forgetting your French, Duo?  Heero would be mortified!" Trowa couldn't help but chuckle at his friend's dilemma.  "Quatre as in four, and a half, as in two; four plus two is six.  He got married in 206. That's how I remember. And as for Wufei, who do you think gave him that idea?"

It was a good thing they had arrived at the dorm.  Duo didn't think he could take much more on an empty stomach. "You know, I think I'll take that shower after I order dinner.  I'm gonna need all the energy I can get just to survive the rest of this night.  What do you say we meet in my room in about 30 minutes?  Pizza OK?"

"Sure Duo, just no anchovies or pineapple, OK?  And leave the door open if you decide to wash your hair, I don't want to be standing in the hall for an hour." They grabbed their bags from the back of the jeep and set off on their new mission.  

Operation: Find a friend.

~~ to be continued ~~

[1] I speak from personal experience!

AN:  Whew, that one took a while to get started, and then I couldn't make it stop!  Had a hard time with how to handle that little conversation but now it's done and, well, we're another step closer to the end.  

Just a personal note here, as I reread it I wondered if maybe I had made Trowa too talkative?  But then I thought back to a few episodes, rewatched a couple of my favorites and decided, NO!  Trowa talks, maybe not as much as Quatre or Duo (and nowhere near as much as Treize!), but he talks plenty when he needs to, so he's not really OOC.  I am trying very hard to keep everyone w/in character.  Anyhow… moving on.  Thanks to all those who've sent notes of encouragement, it means A LOT to me.  I'd also like to know what you think of this one – it's a little different; hopefully you're still enjoying the read.  Thanks again to LooneGirl for proofing.  As for the rest of you reading this (if you're out there):  Comments and criticism are not only welcomed but desired, please write to let me know what you think about it:  BadMomma64@aol.com   I'm a big girl, I can take it. J

Disclaimer:  Alas, I don't own them.


	7. Chapter 7

The Journal, Chapter 7

By: BadMomma

… thoughts

***** . . . ***** "live" action that takes place.

Journal Entry 12.03.AC214

Well, well, well.  My life never ceases to amaze me.  Today I met Quatre's nephew.  He's one of the new interns at our school that Katie had told me about when I was in L2.  And he's one of the cute ones, too.  I was sitting at the benches in the quad waiting for my lunch crowd to show up when he stepped up behind me and cleared his throat.  Since I hadn't seen him before I gave him an odd look and asked if he was looking for the administration office.  It was clear that he wasn't one of the students because he wasn't wearing a uniform and he didn't look old enough to be anyone's parent so I really wasn't sure who he might be.  He thanked me and said no, that he thought he'd found who he was looking for, "Helena, Helena Yuy, right?  I've seen pictures of your father" he said.  

Instantly I was worried, see occasionally a reporter gets it in their head that they need to do an in depth retrospective of the war years and they start chasing down anyone who had anything to do with the famous Gundam pilots.  I can't imagine that they get very close to Wufei or Trowa, so that leaves Duo, Quatre and mom & me.  I know it's happened to all of us because we've talked about it before.  As a matter of fact Duo always jokes that he's pretty sure that the only reason Wufei joined the Preventers was to avoid having to deal with these kinds of things.  Anyhow, I pulled my stock answer up from memory and began to deliver it with as much force as I could.  I told him that if he was looking for some inside scoop on where my father was and what he was up to and what did I think about his involvement in the battles that he could shove it, 'cause I wasn't going to have that conversation with him.  And furthermore that if he didn't get away from me right away I would call campus security and have him escorted from the grounds.  For fun, I had thrown in a few of those colorful Japanese terms Hilde had taught me and began to glare at him.

I thought the guy was going to pass out at first and then all of a sudden he started laughing.  Well, that ticked me off and I was about to get up and go find campus security when he held up his hands in a sign of surrender or something and said that I had completely misunderstood.  It took him a little while to control the giggles and he apologized for not introducing himself properly.  "I'm Michael Faroq" he said "I believe you know my uncle, Quatre Winner." What he said next left me blushing and giggling, he asked me where I learned to swear so fluently!  Imagine my embarrassment when I realized what I had said, I'm going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut – either that or make sure that whoever I'm throwing those words at doesn't know what they mean.  It was then that I realized that he kind of looked like Quatre, slight build, blue-green eyes and – while slightly darker – blond hair.  It was my turn to apologize, so I did and I asked him to sit with me.  

We spent quite some time talking, he told me all about how he ended up at my school.  His father is an engineer I think he said and last summer he took on a project to build a huge medical research and training facility in a neighboring city.  He liked the area so much that he decided to relocate the whole family. His younger sister should be transferring into the school at the beginning of the next semester.  Michael himself is finishing up his teaching degree and managed to get his credits transferred just recently so he could complete his studies at the National Institute of Arts & Sciences here in Sank.  He'll be interning at my school for most of the year, but mostly as an assistant in some of the language classes.  Apparently he's not too much older than me, only about 20.  He says he finished high school early because he'd been tutored privately until he was about 11 or 12 and when he tested to get into some exclusive academy his dad wanted to put him in they placed him in ninth grade. He said he'd heard some teachers talking about me in the teacher's lounge a few days after starting here and that he was glad to finally track me down.  

I told him that I'd been out of town, with Duo, and that it wouldn't have been easy to find me before yesterday.  This he already knew 'cause he had asked and they'd informed him that I'd taken a brief leave of absence.  Apparently they did not approve.  Curiosity got the better of me and I had to ask who it was that he'd spoken to.  I blushed furiously when he said it was Mr. Blair who had answered and I asked him not to judge me by Blair's opinion.  Mr. Blair, my history teacher this year, and I have had a few disagreements, shall we say, in the past.  He doesn't take too kindly to having students correct his biased opinions of the history of our country and the political nature of its leaders, he's a bit pompous and I couldn't help but defend my family and their political background when it came up.  My uncle's not a bad guy, no matter what happened almost 20 years ago.  Michael told me not to worry, that he'd already noticed the guy was an ass and that he'd heard nice things about me from my other teachers when he'd inquired.  I was glad, Michael seemed really nice and I'd hate to have him think I was a spoiled little rich-girl.

We were about to start talking about other stuff when my friends arrived.  He politely excused himself and thanked me for taking the time to talk to him.  I realized that I didn't know where he was staying and that mom would surely love to meet him, so I invited him over to dinner sometime this week.  I made sure to get his phone number and promised to call him tomorrow to firm up a day, maybe I could even set it up so that Duo and Trowa could come to dinner too.  When I said it I wasn't really sure if he knew the other pilots or even cared to meet them, but he sounded genuinely interested and said that it would be great to meet some of his uncle's old friends since he'd only heard stories about and seen pictures of them.  It was settled, he waved goodbye and took off in the direction of the main building.

My friends were all acting like love-struck teenagers after he'd left, joking about how I was moving so fast getting his phone number, promising to call the next day, inviting him to dinner and what with him being an older guy and all.  I swear it makes me wonder if none of these people have any extended family.  Isn't that the kind of thing you do when you meet someone that you share common friendships with, Quatre is like an uncle, why wouldn't I invite Michael to my house, he's practically family.  Too bad Katie wasn't there to back me up, she's the only one of my friends that seems to understand that side of me, as a matter of fact she was almost as excited as me to see Duo when he showed up on Sunday for lunch.  Secretly, I think she has a crush on him – he is kind of cute for an older guy – but I'll never tease her about it.  I think she understands what my family means to me, we're both only children.  That's why we get along so well, that's why even though I might not see him again before he leaves I still went to the movies with her on Sunday afternoon after we had all finished having lunch. I wonder when he is leaving, it should be in a couple of days  

oh, phone's ringing, mom's probably still working, I better get it

*****

"Hello?  Oh hey Hilde! It's Helena."

"Well, of course it's you, I can see that.  How are you honey, getting back into the swing of things?"

"Yeah, you know, rested up on the weekend, got caught up on some gossip with my friends and then it was back to the grind Monday morning.  Breakfast, school, homework, dinner, sleep.  The fun never ends!"

"Yeah, well the only difference when you grow up is that it's 'breakfast, work, housework, dinner, sleep', and that's before you start having children, don't even get me started with that!  Hey, is your mom around, could I speak to her."

"Sure, I think she's still in the office, but…"

"She's still working? What's wrong with that woman?  I'm gonna have to give her a talking to.  Listen if she's busy don't worry about it, I'll call later.  It's not urgent."

"Oh, no Hilde, just hang on.  I'm sure she'd love to talk to you and this way I can remind her what time it is.  She works way too much when she's at home.  Hang on, OK, I'll go get her."

Helena walks downstairs and to Relena's office, listening first to see if there's any conversation taking place, she quietly knocks and pops her head in the door.

"Hey mom, Hilde's on the line for you.  Can you talk to her now or should I tell her you'll call back?"

"No, no, I'll talk to her, what time is it anyway?  God it's almost seven already.  I'll take it here.  Oh um, you done with your homework already, we should have dinner soon, hm?"

"Yeah I'm finishing something up and then I was going to take a shower, I should be ready in like 30, 45 minutes… What're we having for dinner tonight?"

Pursed lips, a shoulder shrug and a head jiggle was the only reply she got before Relena picked up Hilde's call.  "Hilde? Hi, to what do I owe the honor? ….."  Helena let herself out and headed to the kitchen to see what was on the menu.  

Standing just outside the door, Helena paused to try to guess at what her nose was telling her.  Bread, garlic, oregano.  Ooooh, Italian!  Pressing on, she encountered Marie, the cook.

"Aaaah, ma cherie, ca va?" [1]

"Bien Marie, et toi?" [2]

"Jamais meilleur! Eh, que est-ce que tu fais a ma cuisine?[3] 

"Que est-ce qu'il a pour le diner?  Italien, je pense.  Ca sent pain d'ail?" [4]

"Oui ma petite, mais…  Tu ne fais pas la toilette rapide?" [5]

"Certes oui, dans une minute!" [6]

"Eh bien, aller! … Marcher, tout suite! Le diner est prêt." [7]

And with that she left, headed back upstairs to get ready for dinner.

*****

Well, dinner's almost ready so I better finish this up quick. Let's see.

Not much else exciting has been happening these last couple of days.  Mom and I haven't had much time to hang out and talk, I really want to tell her all about my trip and Thanksgiving and what-not, but other than Sunday when Duo was here for lunch, we just haven't had much time together.  Her, Lu and Milliardo all had some serious meeting after dinner yesterday and I watched the kids, but after that we just went to bed. Maybe this weekend we can do something, just the two of us.  Well gotta go.  Tout a l'heure!

Journal Entry 12.06.AC214

Jeez, I've been so busy these last couple of days that I really haven't had time to write.  My French teacher made me write a report to make up for a couple of quizzes I missed while I was away and I had a huge math test this morning.  I'm just glad this week is over, school-wise.  As for the evenings, today was the most fun.  Michael came over for dinner.  It turns out that mom's actually met him before, at Quatre's wedding, he was the ring bearer.  We had a nice dinner then moved to the living room and mom brought out some old photo albums that we went through while having some coffee. There were pictures of him from the wedding, he would have been about twelve, I guess, and he was just as cute as a button. jeez, I never realized what a weird expression that is, my shirt buttons aren't all that cute! Oh well, whatever. She also had some pictures that Quatre had sent of his family at the kid's birthdays and what-not and he was in a few of those too.  Though there were no recent pictures, for the more obvious reasons, at first I thought it was just because 15 year olds aren't into little kids' birthday parties much, but then it occurred to me that he would have been away at school and he wouldn't have been able to attend family events like that regularly, especially with Quatre living in the colonies and all.  

Anyhow, it was a nice evening and we sat around talking, listening to music and looking at old photos.  I can't believe that mom embarrassed me by pulling out those pictures she has of me from when she decided I should take ballet classes.  I looked like a total goof-ball in that pink tutu.  I guess I'm just my father's daughter and the more refined things in life were not for me.  There were also plenty of pictures of me caked in mud, with scraped knees and looking all-around disheveled.  She also pulled out a picture of me from Halloween when I was about four where I dressed up in a kimono and mom had done my hair up in a poofy bun on the top of my head.  I had a pair of chopsticks in one hand and my candy bag in the other. What a sight!  I think that one elicited the biggest laughter of the night.

Michael left about an hour ago and upon her insistence, promised mom that he'd be back at least once a month for dinner.  She said it was no use knowing people in town and not spending time with them.  I think that would be nice, he's a real sweet guy, just like his uncle.

Well tomorrow Katie and the girls are coming over for a picnic down by the lake.  We're going to make ourselves a nice lunch and head down there around noon to hang out, paint our nails, listen to music and just talk.  I can't wait, we haven't all gotten together since right before my birthday and they're all just dying to find out about my adventures in space.  It's funny though, now that I think about it, most of what happened while I was out there is really off-limits for our picnic talk.  Katie's the only one that I confide in about stuff that has to do with my father.  I'm not sure if I don't think the rest of them will understand or if it's just that they really have no clue what it's like for me.  

Katie's parents are the only ones who really know my mom well and they're definitely the only ones that knew my father.  The other girls' parents have met mom, but they treat her like she's some demi-god or something, like they're in awe of her because she's Relena Peacecraft-Dorlian, former Queen of the World, former Vice Foreign Minister, daughter of the late-great King Peacecraft, bringer of peace, …. I could go on for days.  Actually, it's kind of gross, I want to scream at them sometimes that she's just an ordinary mom, but I guess that wouldn't do any good, cause she's not.  Not really.  Well, enough of this depressing crap, I'm tired and I'm going to bed.  I'm hoping for clear blue skies tomorrow.  

~~ to be continued ~~

AN:  This one's kind of short, sorry. But I need to do some set up in the form of a side story (ch.8) and then I can get back to her journal.  Also, I indulge; sorry if the French is a little rusty, please forgive any errors:

[1] Aaaah, sweetie, how's it going?

[2] Fine thanks Marie, and you?

[3] Never better! And what are you doing in my kitchen?

[4] What's for dinner? Italian, I think.  It smells like garlic bread?

[5] Yes my little one, but… Aren't you going to take a quick shower?

[6] Yes yes, in a minute!

[7] Good, go! … On your way, now! Dinner is ready.

[8] Bye for now!

Hope you're still enjoying it.  Need I say again that comments are not just welcomed but encouraged.  Thanks.  Write me at:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer:  I dream, yet they are still not mine.


	8. Chapter 8 - The Search

**The Journal, Chapter 8**

**Side Story – The Search**

**By: BadMomma**

… thoughts

_### date ###  flashback/time change_

Duo walked out of the bathroom in his suite at HQ with a towel around his waist and another around his head.  As he slipped into an old pair of sweatpants and t-shirt, his eyes wandering over to the pile of stuff that lie on the counter in the kitchen area.  Tonight was going to be a long night and he wasn't sure what to do with his new found information.  Earlier in the week he'd had so much hope that he'd be seeing his old friend again, but now he wasn't so sure about anything.

_### 12.03.214, Tuesday morning, Preventers HQ###_

"Duo!"  Trowa came barreling down the hallway towards Duo's temporary office, his badge flapping up and smacking him soundly in the face.  Duo, turning from his conversation with a database tech, nodded his acknowledgement and turned to reenter his office. 

"Good news or bad, Tro?" Motioning to an empty chair and going for the untouched pot of coffee he had brewed an hour before.  "I only want to hear good, so if it's bad turn right around and leave.  I don't want to hear that someone's run in to another brick wall."

Trowa settled in to the seat and graciously accepted the mug being offered.  "I guess things aren't going well with the inquiries?"

"Not really," Duo answered, settling into his chair behind the desk, absently stirring at his coffee, "the five uniform companies we've contacted so far show nothing out of the ordinary, their usual shipments to the usual customers, no thefts, no reports of missing bundles, nothing even remotely suspicious in the last couple of years.  I have them looking a little ways back.  And, to further add insult to injury the possible uniform style slacks in question are used by a wide variety of their customers.  We're currently looking at …" He rifled around the desk looking for the report that bore the unpleasant figure, " 268 candidates, all with the same black pants.  You know, if he wants us to find him, he's not making it easy!"

A smile curled the corner of the quieter man's lips, "Did you expect it to be?  He may want us to look, but he won't make it easy."  He leaned forward in his chair and gave his friend a pale imitation of the other's own grin. "I, on the other hand, have some relatively good news."  A questioning raised eyebrow his only response he continued rather deliberately. "The guys in imaging have been able to peel back the picture and should have something to turn over to the database folks within a few hours.  It's not the same sign, but they're pretty sure that it won't be too hard to track down, it's for a new entertainment complex outside of town.  Apparently they're also working on peeling the sound layers to see if they can get any ambient noise that might help pinpoint the location."

A frustrated sigh escaped the long-haired man but a smile graced his face none the less. "Well, that's a step in the right direction.  After yesterday's pointless visit to the messenger service and this morning's report on the uniforms I was starting to wonder if we were going to get anywhere at all with this."

"Duo, what exactly did you find out from the messenger service, I forgot to ask you after I got out my meeting about the NWO?"

"Well not much really," he took another sip and propped his feet on the edge of the desk, "it seems that Mr. Yuy used a nondescript unnumbered routing slip that could have been picked up at any number of places around the world, he used the branch's night drop box – we're requesting a copy of the security surveillance for the area just for kicks – and paid the precise amount of credits needed to deliver said package to one Miss Relena Dorlian's home address.  Not a credit more, not a credit less.  No trail left what so ever. The only thing we have to go by is a description of cardboard box.  Apparently Heero place the delivery pouch, routing slip and payment in a small cardboard box with instructions to look inside.  Apparently the girl that checks the drop box on Monday mornings thought it odd enough to mention to the branch manager or we wouldn't even know that much."  

Trowa let out a low whistle, "Only to be expected, he always was slick."

"Slick, yeah, like a pig in slop."  
  


_### 12.04.214, Wednesday evening, HQ West Dorms ###_

"Hey, Trowa, you ready man?  The restaurant closes in an hour and I don't feel like eating pizza again." In frustration he knocked harder on his friend's door.  "Hey, I'm the one that needs all the beauty time, remember, you don't have enough hair to make you take so long.  What's the hold up?"

He was answered by a violently opened door and a grin that scared the shit out of him. "Duo, my friend, tonight we celebrate, you better hope they have plenty of wine at that place."  The usually quiet and still semi-stoic man turned to close and lock the door and took off down the hall towards the elevators, "Oh, and I'm paying" the comment and a backwards glance shaking his frozen friend into action.

"Tell me what you know or I'm not taking another step" was the firm declaration as his friend caught up to him at the doors of the elevator.

"Well, I just got a call from Julie – she's one of the database techs assigned to our little investigation – she has identified 4, count them 4, neon signs fitting the description of the one we're looking for, all within 10 miles of each other, all within 15 miles of Heero's old neighborhood."  Stepping onto the elevator that had just arrived, he waited for his slack-jawed friend to recover from the news.  "You coming? Or are you just going to stand there catching flies all night?"

Shutting his mouth with an audible click, Duo practically jumped into the elevator.  "OH. MY. GOD.  Is it possible that we're catching a break here?  I mean, after only what, 3 days, could it be that easy.  And after a day like today, well, I thought we'd never get anywhere.  I told you what we got off the surveillance vids, right, Heero must have paid that kid."

"Kid, what kid?"

"Yeah, I didn't tell you?  Man, we got video from the security company that works that little area and what we found was some kid, must have been about 13 or 14, come up to the drop off slot and pop in the box in question, right around 7:30 on Monday morning, must have caught him on his way to school or something.  We checked a couple of different camera angles, to do a pan of the area, see if maybe we could catch him handing the package over and maybe get a plate from a car or something, but 'Slick' knew what he was doing.  The kid walked into the camera's line of site with the box already in hand, no trace of Heero anywhere."

"'Slick', huh, is that going to be our code name for him now?" Trowa couldn't help but laugh at Duo's obvious frustration.  "Duo, you do realize we'll only find what he wants us to find, obviously, the location of his recording is one of them, I'm more convinced now than ever."

His friend thought it over a bit and acquiesced, "Yeah I guess, but it's still gonna take a while, that area of town is thick with old renovated warehouses, there's loads of apartments there.  It'll take us both days to canvass the area."

"Ah, yes.  But we have two things going for us.  One, we know where to look – a general area at least.  And two, we have the database group to help us.  They were working with the imaging guys to run a program that should extrapolate the approximate distance and angle of the sign from the apartment.  Once we get that, Julie said it'd be ready in the morning, we'll have narrowed down the search radius. I asked her to email it to me so that we can head out straight from here tomorrow."

Duo's spirits seemed to lighten a bit.  "You know, Tro, that sounds like a great plan.  Now, let's hightail it over to Mykonos before they close the kitchen on us. I'm in the mood for a little Pastissio and some Oozo."

_### 12.06.214, Friday mid-afternoon, Downtown ###_

Come on Duo, pick up the damn phone.  What the hell are you doing?

"Maxwell here."

"Hey, it's me.  What took you so long?"

"Sorry I was momentarily indisposed.  You calling just to check in or what?"

"No sir, I think I found the place."

"What!?! Why didn't you say so damn it! Where the hell are you?"

"Two blocks east, three blocks north of sign #3.  Second building in from the northeast corner, 3408 is the number on the building but you can't really tell unless you know where to look.  I'll meet you out in front."

"I'm already on my way, should be there in about twenty."

"Roger that."

"Hey, Trowa, you still there?"

"Yeah. What's up?"

"Are you sure, I mean, how do you know?"

"Someone matching his description has been renting the place for about five or six years now, the Super's wife says she's pretty sure it's him from the picture I showed her.  I asked if she'd seem him in the last couple of weeks and she said no, but then again they live in the adjacent building and she hardly ever deals with the tenants unless her husband is out, which he is now, and he won't be back for a couple of days."

"Is she gonna let us in?"

"Yeah, I showed her my badge and she was more than willing to hand over the spare key."

"Great, I'll be there as soon as I can. Bye."

_### 12.06.214, Friday evening, HQ West Dorms ###_

Duo sighed for what seemed like the millionth time, his thoughts returning from the events of earlier in the day.  It's not like he'd expected Heero to be sitting there waiting for them, it's just that he'd hoped for something … else.  After hanging his towels and grabbing a brush from the bathroom, as if in a daze he meandered over to the kitchenette to heat some water in the tea kettle and begin working out the tangles in the damp mass on his head.  It didn't seem like he'd be going to sleep any time soon.  His eyes kept glancing over at THAT pile. Finally giving in to his sullen mood he retrieved the large manila envelope that contained what had left him in such a stupor.  Sitting at a high stool in the breakfast nook, he shook the contents out onto the table, gently picking up the small key and turning it over in his free hand.  Setting the key aside after a few minutes of contemplation he picked up the white envelope with his name on it and retrieved the contents to read them one more time.  Skimming over what he'd seen earlier that day.

_Duo,_

_Thanks for coming.  I'm pretty sure that you're here cause Relena showed you the video, I was sure she would sooner or later so it was safe to bet that you'd come looking.  I really am sorry that I'm not here to give it to you personally.  It may be too late for that. Let me first say thank you for all you've done for Relena and Helena.  I know you and Hilde have been keeping an eye on them all this time and your friendship, support and love is something I could never repay, and it's much more than I'd ever hoped for.  Thank you Duo, from the bottom of my heart.  It probably sounds like an oxymoron, me and my heart, but it's there and it's functioning, you and Relena made sure of that years ago._

_Now that I think about it, I don't know when you'll be getting this because as you've probably already figured out, I'm gone from here and I won't be back. The apartment is paid through the end of the lease, which is June AC215, at that time instructions will be delivered stating that the contents of the apartment are to be sold and the money donated to charity, with you named as the designator of the charity, anything not sold is to be turned over to you as well. If you've only just then gotten the letter then I must assume that possibly Relena destroyed the video or just never showed it to you.  Which leaves you in an odd position, you see if she destroyed the video and never showed it to Helena, then you might as well just throw away the key, it doesn't matter now.  The other possibility is that she simply didn't show it to you. Either way, you're going to have to ask her about it.  See, in case you haven't seen it, there was a message for Helena and the key in this envelope is for her too.  _

_Let me explain.  After I moved to Earth in AC197, I bought a sleeper trunk, I had it in my old apartment and at first I just used it for spare linens and other things I didn't want to leave lying around.  But as I started to mature emotionally, I realized that I had no record of who I was or where I'd been and that maybe one day I'd want something to show that I'd actually existed in this universe and that there were things that I had cared about.  I started collecting odds and ends from my travels, I did research and pulled news clips and media coverage of the wars and of their aftermath.  I collected a few insightful books on a number of topics ranging from life to spirituality to the war and its lasting effects on humanity.  I guess my personal growth had become my new mission.  The trunk slowly became the designated place for those things.  In addition to all this I began collecting photos of us, old and new, mostly I went to Quatre for those and you may not remember but I had lifted a couple from Hilde while I stayed with you guys.  Even after I moved in with Relena I kept adding things to the trunk, sometimes I'd sketch or write about things that I saw and experienced, things that impressed or depressed me. I still occasionally struggled with self-doubt about my place in our new world, I guess all those years of training weren't just going to go away with a little freedom and happiness._

_After Relena got pregnant I thought that it was something I could one day share with our children. Yes Duo, children, I had planned on sticking around.  As a matter of fact I had an epiphany of sorts within days of Relena telling me she was pregnant.  I couldn't believe my luck – if you can call it that, here was my chance to make up for some of the death I had caused by creating new life.  It was so unbelievable to me, so awesome and inspiring I doubled my efforts to chronicle my life and my discoveries.  I began making recordings for her, telling her about the little things that would happen on any ordinary day.  They were like a living journal that I had hoped to continue and then share with her when she was older.  I never told Relena about it, it was my little secret.  This key opens the lock on that trunk.  I want you to give it to her. Help her find the trunk, Duo, and let her see who I was, who I'd become, even for a short while._

_Those things have been sitting in that trunk for all these years and they're probably still in the same dusty corner of the attic that they've always been.  Relena never went up there, she said the attic gave her the creeps, it's kind of funny when you think about it; a dusty attic scared her, but a homicidal teenage terrorist didn't? As you liked to say, go figure!_

_I know I'm asking a lot, but I need this Duo. I need her to know who I was.  My actions have pretty much assured that I'll never be able to show her what I'd become, there's no way I can tell her firsthand, so this is my only hope.  The reason I'm asking you to do this and not Relena is because I know you still care and you are an integral part of a lot of what's in that trunk.  I know you've made it possible for her to find out whatever she can about me, like setting up that talk with Trowa last year and taking her to the War Museum; I even watched the two of you in the park after the museum and I do still know how to read lips.  I also know that you can help her come to grips with it in a way that Relena can't.  We were close once, you and I, and you were with me some when I was first coming to grips with my humanity.  Do you remember towards the end of 196, that we had signed up for classes at that college on L1, between the White Fang uprising and Relena's kidnapping?  You had enrolled in a class about the history of poetry thinking you could knock out two requirements with just one class.  They had given you an assignment to write a poem about someone you knew and you wrote a poem about me.  I was surprised that you showed it to me, but what surprised me even more was a verse that went something like this:_

_            Remember why you came and why you're alive,_

_            Experience the warmth,_

_            Before you grow cold,_

_            Before you grow old.[1]_

_Those words had a profound affect on me, though I don't think I ever told you. I still think about that poem, as a matter of fact, I even wrote what I could remember of it a few years later in my sketch/journal book, one day that I found myself away from home and shivering at the cold weather.  It should still be in the trunk with my other things.  _

_You shared your warmth with me and made me a more whole person for it, please share it with her now.  She needs it, she deserves it, and I can't think of a better person to do it than you.  I believe that you'll honor my request, if you can.  Thank you again, my friend.  I know you still consider me one and for that I will be eternally grateful, and eternally in your debt._

_Heero Yuy_

_November AC214_

This was killing him.  He folded his arms on the counter and dropped his head onto them, letter still in hand.  Heero's words, written out by his own hand not so long ago, reaching out to him, yet shutting him out.  How could he do this, how could he face Helena and help her through this.  Talking about Heero was one thing, but this, he didn't know if he was angry, depressed, but whatever he was, he just didn't think he could do it.  They had been so close. After finding the letter earlier that afternoon, he had just sat on the couch and looked around the room.  He could almost see Heero ghosting around days earlier, moving from area to area, packing up all evidence of his existence there, putting away the pile of clothes that had sat on the desk during the video, putting on the jacket, and leaving with one last look back.  

Duo's thoughts took the same path they been taking all afternoon.  If he hadn't gone back to L2 when he did, he might have found him in time, might have tracked him down before he'd gotten away.  His friend, one of the few true friends he'd had in life, someone he still considered his best friend.  Why couldn't Heero see how hard this was for all of them?  Why after all this time did it hurt just as bad that his friend was gone? Judging from the video and the letter Heero hadn't reverted to disconnecting from the world in his unemotional façade, but if that was true then he couldn't be oblivious to how hard this would be.  

Just then a firm hand tousling the back of his head broke him from his thoughts and he caught the tail end of Trowa's remarks.   "… how this works don't you. You're supposed to flip the lid up so it doesn't keep making that noise."  

Pouring water into two tea-bagged and ready mugs on the counter, Trowa turned to regard his friend.  "It's still eating at you?  Isn't it?"  A vague head nod was the only response from his friend.  "Duo, look at me… look at me, damnit!"

Duo looked up to see his friend, obviously just out of the shower, damp bangs hanging heavily just to the side of his face, both green eyes staring intently at him.  "If you don't get yourself together, you'll do more harm than good tomorrow.  They need you to be strong.  I know it hurts, it can't NOT hurt, but you're not the only one hurting, you know.  I may not have been as close to him as you were but he was still ONE of my two closest friends.  Did you honestly expect him just to be sitting there waiting for us?"

Taking the offered tea, Duo just shook his head, "I… I don't know what I expected!"  They'd been over this already, they were apparently gonna go over it again.  "Look Tro, I guess I just hoped that it would be something more.  I don't know, at least a 'hey buddy, if you ever desperately need to get a hold of me do this, now that I've decided to make my presence known'.  I don't know", he stood up and turned away from the expectant look on his friend's face. "It's like he's reaching out, he wanted us to look for him Trowa, he wants them to know he's around.  He all but said it in the letter that he's practically been stalking us.  He sat there and watched me talk to Helena at the War Museum when I was here eight months ago.  If he's so damn close why is he still hiding?! Why all this contact so damn close together? Why can't he just come back, say he's sorry and take it like a man?"

"Duo, did it ever occur to you that the threat to Relena and Zechs might have scared him into action?  Wouldn't you be scared shitless if you suddenly found out that some psychos had it out for Hilde and the kids and you couldn't necessarily protect them?  Think about it, he's been hiding out for years, watching from the shadows, everything's going along just great.  Relena and Helena are happy, they've got family close with Zechs, Noin and the kids at the estate, you and Hilde are never more than a call away, and you come back to earth as often as you can.  He knew they were in good hands. Then he discovers that this group of fanatics, who are already under surveillance by the Preventers, have decided to go after a bunch of diplomats and that his one and only child's two remaining blood relatives are both on their list of targets. Wouldn't that throw you for a bit of a loop.  Make you reconsider what you were doing with your life and how you were handling things."

He had a point.  "Damnit Trowa, then why won't he come back to help protect them!  It's not like they'd turn him away.  He knows what's been going on, he knows Helena's desperate to learn more about him. Why can't he just give in and admit he was wrong, come back and make it right?"

Trowa shook his head slowly, "Sometimes it's not that easy and since we still don't know what prompted him to leave…"  Duo returned to the stool and began turning the key over in his fingers when a knock on the door surprised them. Trowa being closest walked over to see who it could be.

"Barton! Pardon my interruption, I thought this was Maxwell's room."

"Chang."  He jerked his head in Duo's direction and opened the door wider to allow him in. "Tea?" he asked, walking back towards the kitchen as Wufei closed the door behind himself.  An outside observer might have thought it too formal an exchange between men who knew each other, but Trowa had learned that it was not insensitivity that made Wufei refer to them by their last names, it was more of an honorific, having something to do with his cultural background.  To Wufei it was a sign of respect, not of distance or contempt.

Duo turned his head and graced Wufei with a nod before returning to stare into his mug.  Wufei approached his seated friend with something akin to caution.  "Maxwell, I spoke to Noin today.  She told me a bit of what's been going on.  I came to see if I could offer my assistance."  Though Duo did not, Trowa acknowledged the offer with a brief nod.  "I know Yuy and I were not as close as you three, but I respected him and I too felt his loss. I have been on assignment for the last week so I am not privy to what has been transpiring.  Is there anything I can do to further your investigations?"

"Not unless you can conjure ghosts, Wu."  And without even looking, he handed Wufei Heero's letter.  The Chinese man set to reading it and when he was done he simply folded the sheet, returned it to the counter and turned to look at Trowa.  

Without missing a beat, he pulled over a chair, took his tea in hand, sat and said, "bring me up to speed."

Trowa ran over the details of what had transpired in the last week leading up to finding the letter that afternoon and gave him a brief background on the part they'd both played in Helena's search for knowledge of her father.  He also told Wufei how Relena asked them to be there when she played the recording for Helena the next evening.  He leaned back into the counter and let his friend digest the information, Duo had yet to participate in their conversation.

When Wufei had given it careful consideration, he set his mug down and gave his assessment.  "You seem to have everything covered, and you checked the name he was leasing under and turned nothing up?" An affirmative nod. "Yes, that would have been too easy." He paused, "You cross referenced that name with the clients of the uniform companies?"

Again Trowa replied. "Working on it.  Doubtful."

"Very well, I doubt that will turn anything up either."  He stopped as if checking over a mental list to make sure all his concerns had been addressed before continuing.  "I agree that the girl should know" he nudged Duo, whose head had returned to his folded arms but rolled to the side to acknowledge him, "and you should both be there as you have obviously been helping her through this. I would imagine that it might be wise for Zechs and Noin to be there as well, however if too many people are there she may not appreciate the knowledge that all of you have been withholding this information from her, for however short a time.  You may want to discuss this with Relena.  Have you informed her of the letter?" Trowa indicated the negative and he continued. "You should.  I also think that before you show her the recording you should check to see if the trunk is still in the attic.  It would be better to know ahead of time than to fill her with a false hope only to have it shattered."  Trowa nodded his assent, he had thought the same thing but hadn't had a chance to talk to Duo about it yet since his friend had been so despondent after their afternoon discovery. When he looked up again, Wufei had risen from his seat and was pacing a small circuit around the room, a tight fist balled up in the small of his back and the fingers of the other hand tapping lightly on the outside of his thigh.  Turning suddenly to face them he cocked his head and asked, "have you tried to track down the boy?"

This got a reaction from Duo who looked up at him slightly confused.  "Boy, what boy?"

"The one that dropped off Yuy's package, he was bound to have had some conversation with Yuy, even if it was brief.  Children have a tendency to notice more than they realize and with the right line of questioning he might be able to offer some information."  He looked between both men who were just staring back at him.  "Obviously not I see, with your permission I will see to that myself tomorrow" he offered.

"How do you expect to do that, 'Fei, it's not like we know who the kid is?"  Duo still appeared to be out of it, but Trowa was quick to respond and began moving towards the door.

"Just like Heero did, we show up early outside the messenger service, in the area where the kid came from.  He hadn't walked across the camera's view before.  And if Heero found him on his way to school, well… we might be able to, too." Stopping just before opening the door he spoke again "I loaded a copy of the surveillance recording into my computer in case we needed it, I'll print a copy of the boy's face so you can look for him tomorrow. Thank you, Wufei, I can't believe we didn't think of that! It can't hurt right?"  And with that he left closing the door behind him only to return a few minutes later with an image of the child.

Accepting the page offered, Wufei stood to take his leave.  "If there is anything else that I can help with please let me know.  Be assured that the agents we have in the NWO are some of our best, Yuy helped assess some of them.  And security around Zechs and Relena is being tightened, I have already spoken to several agents who are assigned and I have great confidence in their abilities.  We will do everything in our power to protect them.  Good luck tomorrow." He patted his long-haired friend on the shoulder then Trowa followed him towards the door, before stepping out he turned and said, "Get some rest Maxwell, you'll need your strength, that girl needs you and so does Relena.  She'll need the support to get through this, to her you're the next best thing to Yuy."  Before finally slipping through the door he looked curiously at Trowa then raised an eyebrow and said, "Nice shorts, did Maxwell lend them to you or have you just been associating with him for too long?  I didn't think that was your style!"  Both men chuckled, shook hands and parted ways.  Trowa appreciated Wufei's gesture, he'd wanted them both to know that he cared and a little harmless barb would do just the trick.

As Trowa went back to the kitchen he noticed that Duo was still resting his head on his folded arms, but fortunately he was no longer hiding his face.  He picked up the empty mugs, rinsed them in the sink and went to stand behind his friend.  He pulled gently on Duo's shoulders to make him sit upright and began sectioning off his still slightly damp hair.  "I may not be as good as Hilde, but I still remember how to do this. I hope you don't mind, I don't want to hear you bitch all day tomorrow that your hair is a mess because you went to bed with it wet and unbraided."  He paused, hoping to get a response but got none.  "Wufei was right, we should call Relena and tell her about the letter before showing up tomorrow afternoon, and we should definitely look for the trunk.  There is no point in mentioning it if someone's already cleaned it out of the attic."  A groan resembling assent was his only reply.  "I was also thinking that maybe I shouldn't be involved tomorrow, you know, I might just get in the way, and I don't know…"  That was as far as he would get.

"Oh no! Don't you dare think that you're going to crawl your way out of this one.  You have as much responsibility to those women as I do.  You are just as involved in this whole thing as me." Duo had reacted so suddenly that Trowa almost lost his grip on the braid he was making.  "Relena wants you there, she told me so. And anyways, I could use your support, too. I don't know if I can do it all by myself Tro. It's been so long since I've felt this way, I mean, I think about him frequently, how can I not, the girls are part of my family, they're a constant reminder of him.  But I had all that under control, and now, now it's like he just left again.  I hadn't been as close to anyone as him since Solo died, and when Heero left, it just came crashing down on me. I felt alone again."  He felt his friend stiffen momentarily behind him and then reach over to grab the tie to secure his braid.

He turned to look at the quiet man standing behind him and realized in that moment just how hard it was for Trowa as well.  He stood and firmly squeezed his friend's shoulder to show that he understood.  It was a pain they both shared.  One of the reason the three of them had been such fast friends is that they had all led parallel lives.  Parentless, homeless, forced to rely on their abilities from early on to survive, with no support structure or compassion to guide them through their trials.  Wufei and Quatre had both been raised in strong families with love and support, and while they had not had an easy time during the wars, they'd at least had something personal to fight for.  

Trowa, Duo and Heero had occasionally referred to themselves as the lost boys, it seemed to describe them well enough.  When the fighting was done they had no ghosts who would be proud of them, no ancestors that they could be proud for, no families or homelands to return to.  They would have been alone, if not for each other.

"I'm sorry Trowa, I know it hasn't been easy for you either. I'm being selfish and I…"

"Don't worry Duo, I know you've had a harder time of it than me.  I shut myself off from them when Heero left, he was my closest friend and yet I neglected my duty to him, and to you, by turning my back on them.  I don't deserve to be part of their world anymore, and maybe that's why I can understand why he feels he can't come back."  Duo moved as if to make an objection, but the taller man held up his hand and continued. "I wish he would come back, don't get me wrong, but I can see where he might not think he can.  The guilt and the shame can be overwhelming. I feel so bad, so guilty, every time I look at them.  I was so ashamed, a not a little scared, that day in the park when it finally dawned on me that I would have to tell Helena what I had done.  And what's worse is that I not only failed them then, I've failed them every day since." 

Neither man spoke for a minutes, digesting the full extent of what the other had said. It was Duo who snapped out of it first with the intent of lessening his friend's pain, the best way he knew how.  "You know, Fei's right, those shorts are kind of cute, where'd you get them, I might get myself a pair!" 

His grin met a surprised emerald green eye.  "You should know, you gave them to me last Christmas. And don't think you're going to blame this bad taste on Hilde, I know better!  Want some more tea?"

"Sure man, sure. You hungry, want to order some sandwiches?" A nod.  "The usual?"  An affirmative grunt.  "OK, and then I think I'll call Hilde I didn't get a chance to call her yesterday."  With that he disappeared into the bedroom and his friend was left standing in the kitchen, mumbling something sounding suspiciously like 'ryoukai'.

~~ to be continued ~~

[1] Confession: I actually *stole* these words from an Incubus song that has always made me think of Heero, even from the first time I heard it.  Check it out, it is a beautiful, hauntingly intense song urging one to 'experience the warmth'.  The album is 'Make Yourself', the song (track 4) is 'The Warmth'; they don't belong to me either.

Authors Notes:

Well it is long overdue, sorry DruidKeep, but see I didn't abandon it.  I suffered some serious holiday writer's block but I think I've finally got my self back on track.  Thanks again to those of you reading that have commented, it means a lot to me.  I hope to get more out soon. Feel free to keep bugging me about it, it might push me to write more quickly.  

Comments, PLEEEEEASE!  Write me at BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer:  The days pass, and still, I do not own them.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Journal, Chapter 9**

**By: BadMomma**

… thoughts

Journal Entry 12.08.AC214

I have to write this now, though I am still bone weary and have not had enough sleep in the last day.  I'm afraid that if I don't do it now before I get some real sleep, that I'll wake up to find it was all just a dream.  In the last two days I have known more joy and sorrow than I can imagine.  December 7th [1] will from this year forward - for me - be my father's birthday.  I met my father that day though not really, no more than I had met him the day I was born, but it will have a much greater impact.  Duo has stayed up with me for the majority of the time, we have laughed and cried, on our own and together, repeatedly in these last 24 hours.  It all started late yesterday afternoon.  

I had gotten up rather late yesterday because I hadn't quite recovered from my trip to L2 and all the schoolwork and socializing just suddenly caught up with me and kept me in bed til almost 2pm.  Mom had come in around eleven to make sure I was feeling OK, and had suggested that I sleep a little more, she'd said she had some work to do and that we weren't expecting company until later.  Since both Duo and Trowa were coming over for dinner, which Trowa had volunteered to cook, I wanted to rest so I wouldn't be nodding off at inopportune moments like I'd been doing for the last few days.  I had even fallen asleep while Katie was painting my toenails at our picnic on Friday!

After breaking out of that sleeping stupor, I showered, dressed and headed straight for the kitchen. I think my stomach was what finally woke me because I was starved.  Rather than encountering Marie as the root of the noises coming from the kitchen, I was surprised to find Trowa there, in a pair of jeans, a faded old t-shirt (that looked suspiciously like something Duo would wear) and a formerly crisp-white apron.  At the moment it was a little wrinkled and dirty at the lower corners, obviously from him wiping his hands.  It looked like he had half the pots in use and the other half in the sink.  I wondered if it would be safe to eat tonight. He graced me with a quirky little smile and asked if he could do anything for me.  I admitted that I was just looking for something to eat.  We talked amiably while I fixed myself a sandwich that would hopefully hold me over until dinner, he relayed the menu for the evening. 

After a while I volunteered to beginning cleaning out the sink so that we would have a place to put all the rest of the pots and pans when he was done with them.  He accepted my help on the condition that I would help him cook.  A cook, he explained, should always be responsible for their messes and he fully intended on helping me, but that by the same logic, the dishwasher should then always help cook.  I told him I didn't think that theory would hold water at a fancy restaurant, but I guess it worked at home.  He took a moment out from his work at the stove to begin drying what I was washing and we talked some more about everything in general, interspersed by him humming a vaguely familiar tune.  I asked him about it and was surprised to learn that he was an amateur musician, never formally trained, I think he said he played the flute.  When we were done with the pans we put them away and he sat down to drink coffee that I don't remember seeing him brew.

He asked about school and how things were going, and I told him about my week.  I told him about how I met Michael and that he'd come for dinner.  He said he was sorry that they hadn't been able to join us as he vaguely remembered him from Quatre's wedding and thought it would have been nice to see him again.  I was so distracted by the cooking and the cleaning and the preparations that when Uncle Mill came in to 'kiss his favorite niece' and ask if dinner was ready yet I couldn't believe more than three hours had passed.  As Trowa told him that it wouldn't be much longer it occurred to me that that was the third time Trowa had talked to me for hours and I was beginning to wonder if everyone was just exaggerating the whole notion of Trowa's silence. 

Trowa and Mill simply greeted each other with their names; 'Trowa', 'Zechs'.  I guess it's just a man thing, Mill and Duo do it all the time. Of course if Wufei is around it goes; 'Merquise', 'Chang'. But I'm digressing.  I noticed Mill give Trowa an odd look before telling him that Duo needed to speak to him, it was then that I realized that I hadn't seen or heard from him since I'd gotten up.  I was so excited that I jumped up from my chair and asked if I could go too, just to say hi.  Mill said that it was business, and that I should really wait til dinner, then asked if I could go tell 'Noin' that he'd be home soon.  I thought it odd that they would not be joining us for dinner but didn't say anything because things had suddenly gotten very serious. I headed off toward their place while Trowa followed Mill in the direction of mom's office.

Dinner took place about an hour later and while the food was great and company pleasant, there was something not quite right.  Mill and Lu did join us for dinner with the kids, but as soon as we had finished clearing the table she made some excuse about putting the kids to bed.  It was an excuse, I know now but only suspected it then, because the kids had not been cranky at all.  Just as she left, the room became uncomfortably quiet for a moment and I was surprised when Duo cleared his throat and said in a very serious voice that they had something they needed to show me.

They lead me into the living room and asked me to sit down on the couch.  Mom sat to one side of me, Mill in the chair across from us, Trowa hung back by the door leaning against it with his arms crossed and Duo just hovered on the other side of me but didn't sit.  I was starting to get worried, they all looked like they were nervous about something and the slightest little thing could have set them off.  Finally Trowa said that it would be best if they just got down to it, and they all seemed to agree with him.  At this, Duo looked at me, picked up the remote to the disc player and simply said, "I don't think there's anything we can say to prepare you for this."  I tried hard to swallow the lump in my throat, whatever they were going to show me had to be bad, they were all so tense.  He pointed the remote at the player, what came on the screen has me numb still.  

My father.  I vaguely remember Duo sitting at some point in time and putting his hand on my back gently, mom reaching out to hold my hand, and not much else.  I don't think I really heard any of what he said that first time I watched it, I was just so shocked to see him, sitting there, and talking to me. Directly to me.  He'd sent me a message.  It was something that I had never even dreamed of and I mean that in a most serious way.  

Sometimes people say that they've dreamed about something happening, but in reality they've fantasized about it.  Your fantasies you can control, because you control your conscious mind when they are taking place, you can consciously make yourself believe that these things could happen, because in some vaguely remote way there is the possibility that they might.  Yes, you might actually one day cross paths with your favorite movie star in a grocery store, or stand at the podium of some huge stadium to introduce your favorite rock band.  Not likely, but possible.  Your dreams are entirely different, you have no control over them whatsoever. There are those who believe that your dreams are a manifestation of your true desires, but I don't believe that, because no one really wants to walk around school naked, nor do most people want to find themselves in some of the odd situations that the "funnier" dreams find them in.  Who really wants to take their shoes off in gym class and find that they have webbed feet like a duck.  None of the people I know, so it just doesn't make sense.

So you see, I had wanted it, yes. But never dreamed it, and most certainly never fantasized about it.  He was unattainable to me.  Mom had said he would never come back and somehow I just accepted it as the truth, everyone else seemed to believe it, too.  I would never see him, I would never talk to him, I would never interact with him.  He was dead for all intents and purposes, only it didn't have the same finality.  Any kind of direct contact between him and me just never seemed possible.  But there he was.

The recording finished and I thought I saw tears shining in his eyes, but he was gone before I could be sure.  The screen went blank but I was left frozen with the final image of him saying goodbye.  "I do love you Helena, I just wanted you to hear it from me."

No one spoke or even moved for what could have been an eternity.  I think they were afraid I might break or something.  I finally came around to my senses when I felt Duo touch my face to wipe away a tear I hadn't felt.  I looked down at my hands that had remained unmoving on my lap and noticed that my blouse was wet, just off the front of my shoulders, where apparently other tears had come to rest.  I felt my mother shift next to me and embrace me gently, without stifling my ability to move.  I was the first one to speak, though it took a few tries to get out two simple words, 'again please'.  I think Duo was in the same trance as me because Trowa had to come from where he was standing at the back of the room to restart the recording.  I remember him saying 'as often as you wish' as he passed on his way back to his post.

I watched it again and this time I heard more of the words.  He loved me, he missed me, he'd committed a grave error that kept him from me, he watched me, he was proud of me, he was sorry and again that he loved me.  I kept getting lost in the look in his eyes, the way his mouth moved, the slight pause between words, the way his shirt moved gently as he flexed and relaxed the muscles of his arms and chest, perhaps merely with the process of breathing.

I wanted to watch it again when it ended, but I didn't think it would help.  I needed time to get over my shock and I had to give them, the others in the room who seemed to be holding their breaths, a chance to react.

This time it was Mill who was brave enough to go first.  Tentatively he asked me if I was OK, if I needed a moment alone, he offered that they could all step outside the room to give me a second to pull myself together.  I felt mom shift next to me, stretching out to touch me.  I think now that she was afraid I would push them all away, it didn't take a genius to figure out that they had been hiding this from me for a while, though quite honestly I hadn't figured it out yet.  Duo later confirmed that this was the 'it' from that fated conversation at the L4 terminal.  Mill waited a few moments and spoke my name again, this time Duo reacted too.  He brushed a few of my bangs from my face, tucked some hair behind my ear and said 'baby, are you still with us?'  His voice sounded like I'd never heard it before, like a frightened child, and oddly I wondered if that was what he had sounded like years ago before they had all first met.  I turned to look at him, as if seeing for the first time.  My gaze then passed over his shoulder to Trowa who stood like a statue by the door a haunted look in his eyes, I had seen the echo of that look before and I later understood what it was.  I then turned to Mill who looked almost frightened, and then to mom who looked like she would burst from the sadness.  I had never seen quite that much pain in her eyes and all I could do was let the tears flow and cling to her desperately, as much for myself as for her.

I guess that my actions were the proverbial flood gates for everyone in the room.  I don't remember too well what happened in the next hour or so.  I'm vaguely aware of people moving about, hands caressing my hair, my back, my shoulders, my hands but all those touches were aimed to reassure me, to tell me that I was loved and that I was not alone.  It helped, and slowly the dam closed.  I hadn't cried because I was sad, I was just overcome with emotion and a need to vent it somehow. When I finally regained control over myself, only mom and I were in the room, I looked around for the others, confused at first at why they had left. 'Privacy' she said, they had wanted to give us privacy.  She started to ask if I was OK, but hesitated and instead asked if I thought I would be alright, and if I was ready for them to come back.  There was more she said, but she would not be the one to tell me about it.  I think I was afraid for a moment, unsure that I would be able to handle any more shocks like the one I had just received.  And then I agreed, whatever else was to happen could only be good.  I had wanted this with the very core of my being for so long. In a moment of clarity I truly understood that my father loved me.  No, he hadn't come back but he had risked hurting all those that he loved so dearly to prove it me in the only way he felt he could.  And I understood for the first time that what they had all said was true, and the memory his words came back to ring truer than they ever had before.  …_I love you and Helena, I always will…_

Duo and Trowa must have been waiting outside the door because before I finished thinking or agreeing to it they were at my side.  Duo pulled me into a fierce hug and I felt dampness on his cheek and felt the irregularity of his breath while he stroked my hair and whispered unintelligible words of comfort.  When he released me he went and did the same for mom.  Trowa came up to me hesitantly placing a hand on cheek and had askance in his eyes, it was then that I realized what the look had been before and I clung to him in an effort to let him know with my actions that I held no blame or animosity toward him.  He said nothing, he just held me until Duo was ready for his next job.

The next task would not be as difficult.  We had made it past the first hurdle and were in the home stretch now.  I sat down again and Duo sat at the end of the couch facing me, with his right knee bent towards the back of the couch.  He looked at me, then up at mom who had not resumed her position beside me preferring instead to stand out of view.  He looked back at me with intent and then looked down at his hand, the one that was extending towards me.  'Heero asked me to give this to you.' He opened his hand to reveal a small key and I cocked my head to one side as I looked at it.  'He asked you?' was all I managed to say before looking back at him and tilting my head the other way, as if the movement would make sense of the words.  His voice was so low when he began to speak again that I wasn't sure if I had missed what he said first.  'He wrote me a letter and left it where I'd find it.  He asked me to give this to you and to show you… show you…' He stopped and pursed his lips, as if unable to continue, then he put the key in my hand, grabbed hold of both and gently pulled me to stand with him.  'Let me show you' he said and he led me away.  I felt like I was moving within a dream, I felt like I was watching what was going on as if it wasn't really happening to me.  He led me to the study, the place where I had found mom's journal.  Mom and Trowa stood at the door but did not enter, she said they'd be nearby if we needed anything and then closed the door between us.

The furniture had been pushed out of the way and in the middle of the room there was this huge box, a trunk.  It looked old and dusty.  He sat in front of it and twitched his head to indicate that I should sit next to him.  It occurred to me that the key must be to unlock the trunk and I was suddenly gripped with some irrational fear.  I asked him what it was, what was in there, why my father had given this to me, what would I find.  He thought for a moment and then said only one word.  'Answers.'  I knew what he meant, answers to my questions about my father, answers about who he was, answers that would allow me to know him.  I think we were both a bit afraid of what we might find but I fit the key in the lock and with little effort opened it to look inside.

There were papers, books, smaller boxes, pictures, news articles, vid disks, trinkets, a few notebooks, and numerous other things, probably some I won't find for a while still.  At first we just picked things off the top, trying to figure out what they were and what significance they had in his life.  Some things were obvious, there were pictures at the top of the pile, pictures of places Duo knew he'd been.  There were a few pictures of him with one of the other pilots, with mom or with me.  There were news clippings of some events that had been important enough that they would make a keepsake years later, like now.  There was an ad for Trowa's circus, from a performance they had done in Russia about six months before he left.  But there were also things that we had to think about.  Things that made no sense to me, but when I showed them to Duo would make him hold or take in a breath and then he'd explain the significance.  There was one small article about a new bill being signed into legislation regarding increased funding to rebuild orphanages and group homes on the colonies for the children of the wars.  It had taken a considerable amount of effort to push them through and the greatest need appeared to be in the L2 cluster.  Duo's home.

We hadn't even made a dent in the contents of the trunk and we had been pulling things out for over an hour.  We realized that he must not have gotten around to organizing the stuff that was on the top, because as we dug around to get at the other boxes and the books, we saw that he had catalogued the older things.  Some of the boxes held pictures, some exclusively news clippings, there was a box with only vid disks in it and they were numbered, so they have to be watched to determine their content.  There was one box that contained several small bags with sand, soil and pebbles.  Each bag was labeled with a date and location.  These were the places he'd been, these were the tangible examples of where his life had taken him.  As we began to see the pattern of how he'd arranged things we decided that it would be best to follow his example.  So we began to organize everything that was loose.  Of course we would still get distracted by the objects we were handling.  Sometimes one of us would run across something that we wanted to share with the other and we would sit back and talk about them.  At one point, it had to have been very late that night or early the next morning I became absorbed by one of his sketch books.   I had meant to take the book out of the trunk and move it the pile with the other books when it slipped slightly from my hand , opening to a drawing of a sunset.  It had been done in pencil first and then he'd apparently gone back to color some of it in, but only part of it, which is what caught my attention.  I sat back and started thumbing through the pages, mesmerized by the images.  

That whole night and the greater part of the next day we spent in that room.  Just the two of us.  By the early morning hours we had taken off our shoes and pulled our shirts from their tucked positions inside our pants so that nothing could obstruct our needs.  One at a time we went out to use the bathroom, we wandered into the kitchen to grab something to eat but always brought it right back and shared it, we drank coffee and soda and talked and looked and catalogued and reminisced and learned a whole lot about the man named Heero Yuy.  We also took little naps, cat naps mostly, every once in a while one of us would get a little too comfortable while looking something over and would drift off into to sleep.  But when we awoke the other one never mentioned it and no one ever came in to interrupt us.  It was as if we'd found a new world to explore and nothing, not even our own tired bodies could stand in our way.  

I think that by mid-afternoon we had sorted and catalogued only a third of the loose items and we were starting to get punchy.  Every little thing we did or said made us giggle.  I actually caught Duo falling asleep sitting straight up with a picture firmly grasped in one hand and the lid to the picture box in the other.  I think that mom must have had some radar or something because she walked in on us around five and demanded that we shower and go to bed for a while.  It was pretty clear to her that we had spent the whole night up.

So here I am, it's 6:10pm on Sunday, December 8th, the day after my father's birth.  I'm about to pass out from exhaustion, both physical and mental, but I'm hunched over this damned laptop just trying to get it all down.  Maybe I'll sleep for the rest of today and return to my new world again tomorrow.  Now that I have proof that it wasn't all a fantasy – or even a dream.

Journal Entry 12.14.AC214

Trowa left last Tuesday, he said that it was time for him to return to his responsibilities and stop reliving the days of his youth.  I know that he meant the times after the war when they'd finally gotten to act like teenagers but it was sad to think that they'd not had a chance before then, most of them had been either 16 or 17 by the end.  If the wars had lasted any longer, they would have all been adults by the end and that would have been sadder still.  It was a bittersweet goodbye for me, though I've only really known him for just over a year and we didn't keep in touch between my two visits to L2, it feels like he's become an integral part of my family in the last three weeks.  I think I'm going to miss him terribly.

The trunk has become the focal point of the last week.  I must admit that I'm almost as tired now as I was last Sunday.  I have fallen into a routine of going to school, rushing home, doing my homework and rummaging through the trunk contents but I'm not alone in that, everyone has joined me.  It hasn't been all that organized, my rummaging that is, there is so much to see that I just don't know where to start.  I've decided to leave the vids for later.  I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet and Duo agrees that I probably need to go through the more tactile stuff now.  Everyone seems to get more pleasure from that, as if it's better to touch that which he touched, as if it somehow brings us closer together.  

For some reason we've spent most of our time going through the pictures.  There are at least two boxes of those.  It seems that father took to photography quite a bit, and since one of picture boxes close to the top had a start date and no end date that is where we have concentrated our effort.  On Tuesday night after dinner, Duo brought that box to the table while we were having coffee and dessert, we sifted through the pictures and put then in chronological order, the last of the pictures was taken just a week before he left for the last mission.  There are a few of him and me in that bunch so I guess mom must have taken them. We spent hours talking before the guys said they needed to leave.  Trowa need to get back to the dorms and pack his things so he could catch the early shuttle the next morning.

He promised to keep in touch, if nothing else by email and that he'd let us know the next time they came to earth, which could be as early as next spring.  I told him I was looking forward to seeing him again and that I would hold him to his promise.  Then he asked if he could speak to me privately, at this Duo and mom left the table.  He explained to me in slightly more detail how he and father had kept in touch before his disappearance and how he'd tried to reach him after. He made it clear that father had gone out of his way, even lately, to make sure that no one could find him and unless he changed his mind that no one ever would.  But Trowa wanted to try, he felt he owed it to us try but not unless I was OK with it.  I agreed and thanked him, then I assured him that he shouldn't feel he owed us anything but that I would welcome it.  He hugged me, kissed the top of my head and stepped out of the dining room.  I heard him and Duo talk briefly and then he walked away.  Duo came back in and settled himself at his place at the table, he had decided to stay the night and return to the base in the morning.  Mom came back a few minutes after Trowa left but retired shortly, reminding us that we had school and work and shouldn't stay up too late.  Duo and I spent another two hours looking through the old photographs, organizing them and talking.

On Wednesday while I was at school, Trowa sent us an email with their schedule of performances for the next two months.  He kept the first of his promises and I believe he will continue to do so with the rest.

Duo on the other hand is leaving in a few days.  He still has some work that he can accomplish here but he says if he stays much longer, Lady will start to wonder if she needs him at all and Hilde will probably kill him.  I know he misses them and Christmas is just around the corner. He should go home to his family, I know they must miss him terribly, too.  I'll see him again in a couple of months because his work brings him here often enough, but I'll miss him until then, that much I can't deny.

Journal Entry 12.31.AC214

Another New Year's Eve is upon us and I'm sitting here making my finally entry for the year, and possibly for a while.  

We're going to a party at Katie's, it's their turn this year to host the festivities though it will likely be our last together.  By this time next year Katie will be on L4 and there's no telling when they might come back.  Katie told me that her dad's assignment there will last at least three years, and while her family discussed the possibility of her staying and completing her school here, they decided against it in the end.  It wouldn't be right to split up the family like that so she and her mom will be leaving within a month of school letting out.  We'll just have to enjoy the time we have together.  

Speaking of which, this is the first year that we are both participating in the 'adult' party. It really doesn't mean much except that we get to stay in the main room.  The kids are always segregated at these things, they're kept in a separate room from the adults complete with their own form of entertainment until midnight.  But this year we get to dress up in evening gowns, dance and mingle with the older crowd.  It's not that either of us are into older guys but a few of the other parents in the Diplomatic Core have rather good looking sons our age and a little older.  Hopefully the Gaultier twins will come with their parents this year, they are Seniors at our school and would have been allowed into the adult party last year had they attended.  It would be fun having someone we know there, even though we're not the best of friends.

I have to start getting ready soon so I think I'll wrap this up.  I've come to a decision in the last two weeks and, not that I need to explain myself since I'm the only one who's reading this, I want to put my thoughts down cause, well, that was the whole purpose of this.  I have decided that I will not be writing as often as I have been. When I started this journal two months ago I knew nearly nothing about my father.  I was frustrated that at the age of fifteen all I had were images from a handful of pictures and videos and some quaint stories about this man.  

Now, things are different.  The day before Duo went home I asked him about something that I'd come across in dad's notebooks.  I kept finding notes in Japanese in the corners of his sketches.  At first I thought he had just written some note to himself but I noticed that the characters were either exactly the same or very similar in each of them, there were two distinct notes.  Since I don't speak Japanese I figured someone could tell me what it said, but mom doesn't read it – though apparently she can speak it conversationally– so I asked Duo if he might be able to help out.  

When I showed him the first one I thought he would keel over.  It was that line from Duo's poem that dad had quoted in his letter;  "experience the warmth" [2].  That one appeared most frequently.  

The other one reads "Allow me to be forgiven, show me the way to let go." [3] I noticed that he only wrote that in the margins of his 'darker' drawings and thinking about it now fortunately there weren't too many of those.  Still, his darker drawings are something to behold.  I don't know if he had drawn all of them from memory but at least of few of them had to be because Duo explained that some of those drawings were scenes from the wars.  All the dark drawings are done in a dark pencil and none of them are colored in.  Many are partial pictures of mobile suits in the stages of battle (I didn't realize it until Duo pointed them out to me), there are ruined buildings and images of poverty, destruction and death.  There's even one that Duo says must be an image of the Libra exploding.

I feel much closer to him now and I hope it will only get better, but I have so much to learn about him and from him and it's sitting there in that trunk downstairs.  That trunk is actually the reason that I haven't made an entry in nearly two weeks.  I have spent most of my otherwise unoccupied time going through the items in that trunk and one thing I have learned from it is that I have to live my life now and experience what it has to offer.  So in the last few days I have laid out a plan for myself on how to tackle the wealth of information that's in there without letting it consume me.  You see I don't want life to pass me by or lose out on what it has to offer me at this moment simply because I need to learn about my past.  So this will be my last entry for the year, and maybe for some time.  I don't know how long it will be before I get around to making my next entry.  But for now I want to experience the warmth.

~~ to be continued ~~

[1]  OK, I didn't mean for that to happen, it just fell on that day and it's too late now to change the timing on the whole story.  So, sorry.  In case you're wondering, 12/7 (1941) is the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, significant in a sense, since Heero is Japanese.

[2]  Again, "The Warmth", by Incubus from the album "Make Yourself"

[3]  "Thomas", by A Perfect Circle from the album "Mer de Noms"

AN:  First, thanks if you're still reading; though it seems there's only one person left reading it aside from my beta-reader (that would be you, DruidKeep).  Second, I apologize for continuously having Heero quote lyrics from some of my favorite songs.  I'm not all that poetic and those songwriters are, sooo… Next, a challenge:  did any notice a, perhaps too-subtle, change b/w the last two entries.  If so let me know what you think, maybe I'm just being too much of a smart ass for my own good.  And lastly, while Helena may not be making as many journal entries as before, I will continue to write as much as I can.  I just need to skip things along at a slightly quicker pace than before and if I don't make less journal entries then you'll be reading a lot of filler crap.  (Not that I want to write filler any more than you want to read it.)  So from here on out the J.E.s will be skipping ahead in clumps (about 2 months apart.)  We are now truly in the home stretch, only 3 chapters and an Epi left.

If you are still reading, please drop me a line at: BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer: *sigh* In addition to not owning GW; Incubus & APC's words and music do not belong to me.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Journal, Chapter 10**

**By: BadMomma**

Notes at the bottom.

… thoughts

***** . . . ***** "live" action that takes place while she's writing her journal.

Journal Entry:  03.04.AC215 

I can't believe it's been more than two months since I last made an entry in my journal.  I've been meaning to sit down and write for what seems like an eternity and I never seem to have the time.  But today I heard some wonderful news and I figured it was about time I made time.  

Wufei is getting married.  

Actually, he's engaged, but why do people get engaged if not to get married.  It's funny because I don't actually remember ever attending a wedding.  I'm know I have, I've seen pictures of the weddings I've attended, there was Duo and Hilde's and Quatre and Aisha's, but I was very young.  Did I say this already, I am so excited!  Mom says that I should know her, we met Wufei's fiancée at the New Year's Eve party, her name is Maribeau, and that she and Wufei have actually known each other for years.  It turns out that when Sally recently accepted a promotion, which will require her to move to one of the colonies, her position became vacant.  Maribeau, who had met him through work, decided to interview with Wufei for Sally's old job.  I'm not sure if she got the position or not, but the meeting sparked a flame and they began dating almost immediately.  It's rather a quick courtship if you ask me, but mom says that's typical Wufei.  He sets his sights on something and plunges in at full throttle.  I sent him an email this afternoon congratulating him and wishing them both the best.  I'm glad that he has found someone to share his life with.  He deserves it.

On to other matters, the last couple of months have been fun.  Mom and I spend copious amounts of our weekend time investigating 'the trunk'.  Several weeks ago she and I were talking about it at dinner and we decided that it would probably be nice to go through it together.  I had still been spending an awful lot of time on it on school nights despite my earlier claims that I was going to let up.  So we decided that we should we should set aside some time, one day a week to go through it.  We decided how we were going to tackle the project, at the time I was still organizing stuff, though I was almost done.  We set one Sunday aside, just to finish the organizing; then we made ourselves a schedule.  We would spend as many hours as we wanted, each Sunday, just 'spelunking'.  So far, we've watched a couple of the vid discs already, we've thoroughly explored one whole sketch book, and we've conquered about a box and a half of photos; all in like six weeks.

It's really cool to go through it with mom, to see her find out things about dad that she didn't know.  It's amazing how close they were and yet how much of himself he hadn't revealed.  Mom's been most affected by his writings and sketches, she says it reveals a side of him that was much deeper than even she realized. I'm glad that she's getting to know him better along with me. Too bad it can't be in person.

On other fronts, Michael and I are becoming good friends.  He's been coming to dinner at least every other week and if mom had her way it would be more often, but between work and his studies he doesn't have more time.  I've told him about my dad and shared with him some of the things I found in the trunk, actually he had mentioned some interesting rock formations he had seen on a vacation and I remembered dad having a sample of rocks from the area, so I showed them to him.  From that moment forward he always asks if I've found anything new and interesting to share.  I'm really glad I can count him as a friend.

We see each other at school all the time and have even had lunch together a few times.  My lunch friends have fortunately stopped teasing me about the 'older man' in my life once they realized that it really was a family thing.   Sometimes he comes over on the weekend and we just hang out.  Last weekend he hung out with Katie and me and watched movies all afternoon.  He and Katie hadn't had a chance to meet and talk until her parents' New Year's Eve party, which he attended as his friend's date.  That evening, he made sure to keep me and Katie entertained as his friend made the obligatory political rounds, apparently she interned with Katie's dad the last couple of summers and is hoping to get a permanent position in the diplomatic corps after graduation.  I'm happy that he feels comfortable hanging out with us because he's a great guy and we're really a lot alike.  The three of us mostly grew up around older people, he's the youngest of his siblings and Katie and I are only children, so we've gone through some of the same things. To us he's kind of like the older brother we never had, to him we're like his little sisters.

Journal Entry:  05.30.AC215 

Today was the last day of school.  This afternoon I was so depressed I thought I would cry.  I should be happy because the summer is finally here, but I'm not.  In less than one month my best friend will be leaving for L4 and I probably won't see her in a very long time.  I don't even know how long it'll be 'til they get a chance to come back to earth?  Will I get a chance to go to L4?  Will our friendship be able to survive the physical distance between us?  We've been talking and making plans for the last two weeks.  The closer the end of the year got, the more urgent the need to have a plan became.  It's almost as if we were afraid that we wouldn't have time to do it once school ended.  Katie and her mom have so much left to do before they leave that I may not be able to see much of her in the next month.  There have been times where we just sat next to each other and held hands as if to remind ourselves that we were still both there.  As if that contact would insure that the other wouldn't suddenly disappear.  

Our grand communication plan consists mainly of us e-mailing each other.  We know we won't be able to call each other that often because the phone bills would be exorbitant.  And because of the time difference between us, chatting on-line will be near impossible, but we figured out we can do it on the weekends since we'll both be home at the same time, I'll stay up a little late and she'll get up a little early.  It's the best we can do.

I feel so lonely even though she's not gone yet.  Sometimes the feeling's so overwhelming that I can't breath.  Most of all, I feel lost.  We're going to ask our moms to let us spend at least one weekend together, probably here since her house is being packed up.  She says her mom expects them to have to spend their last couple of days on earth at a hotel, since the remainder of their furniture needs to be shipped the day before they leave.  I was at Katie's house last week helping her pack her stuff and it was eerie to see the house looking so empty with the majority of their things in boxes, stacked throughout the house.  I almost wish they would come stay with us for those last few days, but it might hurt even more when they have to leave.  I imagine this is how mom must have felt when dad never came back.

I'm trying not to think about it and be positive, but sometimes I just can't see what there is that is positive in this situation.  I don't want to think about it anymore, maybe I'll just go to bed and end what could possibly be one of the most depressing days of my life.

Journal Entry:  06.01.AC215 

OK, I've had a few days to get over my fatalistic mood and with mom's help I'm feeling a bit better.  We talked this afternoon, while spelunking, and I told her why I'd been so down for the last couple of days.  I guessed right, she did feel like that after dad had disappeared and she said it was a natural human reaction.  She said she would've been worried about me had I not been feeling that way, but we talked about what we could do to try and enjoy our last few weeks together.  As a matter of fact she's gonna call Katie's mom and offer that they stay here when they need to leave home.  I'm still not too sure about that, but I'm not gonna say no.

I just realized having reread my last entries that I haven't written about what's been going on since the beginning of March and it's strange because so much has happened.  Let's see, do this in order here

First, about a week after my 2nd to last entry Duo called to say that he and the family would be coming to visit in April.  Mom and Hilde had wanted to get together and the Maxwell's just decided to attach their vacation to the end of some meetings Duo had to come planet-side for.  My beloved braided uncle and his crew of misfit – as he calls them – would be spending two weeks at the house with us.  

It was absolutely wonderful.  Of course, I was in school for most of the day but they came in on a Thursday night and didn't leave 'til the third Sunday later.  Most spelunking was cancelled on those weekends, but not all.  It was great to have them all around; the boys just get cuter every day, the baby – who's not a baby anymore – was virtually everywhere and in everything.  It's incredible how quickly they all grow; if I hadn't seen them just a few months ago I wouldn't believe it.  

Hilde and I got to do a little shopping that first weekend they were here.  The second weekend, Duo and I took the kids to the zoo and the park so mom and Hilde could go out to do 'big girl stuff'.  It also gave us some time to catch up on what I'd found in the trunk and for him to let me in on his and Trowa's attempts to get in touch with my dad.  He told me that they'd both been in touch with each other regularly and were trying desperately to convince dad to respond.  Of course, it hadn't worked yet, but he said they wouldn't be giving up in the near future and that they could be just as obstinate as him.  

I wish I'd been able to spend more time with them but my spring break had already passed when they came to visit and mom only let me skip school the last Friday they were here.  We all went to the beach and spent their last couple of days at a seaside hotel.  Sunday afternoon they hopped a shuttle home and everything was back to normal for about two weeks.  

That was, until Trowa came to visit.  The circus arrived in town on Friday, May 2nd.  Actually they had arrived a few days earlier but were busy setting up.  Trowa came to dinner on Thursday night since he would be busy for most of the nights after.   He made us promise to come to at least one of the weekend performances and left us enough ringside tickets to take half the planet to see the show.  That weekend mom, Katie, her mom, Michael and I all went to see the show.  Afterwards Trowa invited us to join him for coffee and we got to meet a great deal of the performers.  Trowa also took us to meet his pride and joys, the lions.  He rarely ever handled the animals now that he was the manager, but the new trainer was a good friend of his and they let us get close enough to pet them.  They also to let us ride the elephants and play with the chimps, I hadn't had that much fun in a long time.  While we were all having fun, our moms convinced Trowa to put on a small benefit show at the local children's hospital during the week, so Katie and I were drafted as temporary clowns.  Michael got out of it because he had to work.  It was during our visit to the hospital that I met some circus folks who remembered my dad.  They all spoke very highly of him and I was struck with the realization yet again that he made such a positive impression on people.  It wasn't since I'd gone to Duo's office all those months ago that I'd had total strangers treat me so nicely just because of him.  

By the end of the week, the circus had to move on.  To make things easier on the animals, they traveled mostly on land, Trowa made arrangements to fly to their next destination in time for their opening which gave him a couple of days to spend at the house.  It was nice to spend time with him again and I found that he and mom made great friends.  She says he has a quiet strength to him that reminds her very much of dad and that's probably why they were such good friends.  When I think about it though it doesn't explain how Duo fits in the picture, but then again, who could resist him?

Before he left Trowa promised again to keep in touch.  He also said that if he heard anything at all about dad, I'd be the first to know.  I thanked him again for trying and wished him a fond goodbye.  I'm not sure when I'll see him again.  

~~ to be continued ~~

AN:  This one is a little on the short side, sorry about that.  Not much to say other than _thanks_, if you're still reading (Special Hi/Thanks to Angel, Patate Yuy, Little Washu and DK-you're the best!).  We're down to 3 chapters (11, 12 & the Epi). Don't hesitate to let me know what you think.  Ja ne!

Disclaimer:  As if it wasn't already obvious, they're not mine.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Journal, Chapter 11**

By BadMomma 

… thoughts

***** . . . ***** "live" action that takes place.

Notes at the bottom.

Journal Entry 08.18.AC215

Well, well, well.  It's been three months since the last time I had a chance to update my journal and there is so much to tell I almost don't know where to begin. 

At the beginning would probably be the best place, I guess. OK, here goes. 

I'll take it slow and try to remember everything in order.  The first important thing that happened was that mom was able to convince Katie's mom that they should spend their last few days here with us.  Then, by some act of God or who knows what they dropped the bomb. A pleasant bomb, but a bomb nonetheless.  Katie would be staying with us for two weeks after her mom left and then we'd both be going to L4.  Our moms had decided that we deserved a little time to ourselves and that it would be nice for me to come visit with them for a little while to get a feel for their new home.  I guess they figured I'd feel a little better if I'd actually been there.  

At first I wasn't sure if I really wanted that or not, it seemed like prolonging the inevitable.  I thought it might be better if we didn't see each other for a while and then were able to get together again – like at the end of the summer or something, but in the end I think it worked out for the best.  And for reasons I'm not ready to explain – yet.

The two weeks we spent here on earth after Katie's mom left gave us time to plan our time on L4.  We were able to search the net for information on her new school – things like the curriculum, clubs, how their sports programs fair against their competition; Katie's one of the best swimmers at school and she's on the varsity volleyball team – she's quite the athlete really – and these things are important to her.  Since her new school doesn't have a swim team we looked into whether there was a local competitive swim club, which there's not, so I guess she'll have to stick to volleyball, they're not bad at that. We then looked into the things we could do in her new neighborhood once we got there, we wanted to try to figure out where we could go while I was there for the following two weeks.  We came up with plenty of things for us to do and made ourselves a schedule of activities.  I think we kind of over-planned, but we figured we could always drop a few things from the list if we wanted to.  And boy did we ever, how does that expression go 'the best laid plans of mice and men'?  Yeah, right!  The rest of the time we spent acting like two vacationing teenagers girls.  We went to the movies, we swam in the lake out back, we took a day trip to the beach with some of our girlfriends, painted our nails, talked about dying our hair, entertained ourselves with fantasies about movie stars and rock singers; just the usual stupid stuff we do when we're on vacation.

When the time came to go, mom drove us to the shuttle port and waited til she'd watched us board.  Like the good mom that she is, she made me promise to behave, keep out of trouble – as if – and to call her every couple of days.  Apparently, she and Uncle Mill had had a little argument over whether it was wise of her to let me go on my own or not and he'd made her promise to get me to call every couple of days.  It wasn't until then that she told me about the other things that were going on last December while I was caught up in the whole mystery of my dad.  I was so wrapped up with the chest and the disk that I had forgotten the other part of that cryptic conversation between Duo and Trowa at the terminal on L4, about 'the transmissions'.  Seems the transmissions were about some anti-government group or something that had decided that the mom, Mill, Lu, Lady and a few other people – all who'd been born on earth or were on that side of the conflict all those years ago, were a threat to the continued relations between earth and the colonies.  I'm not sure I'll ever understand what makes people think that way but, whatever.  I guess that's why the Preventers are still around, cause you're always going to have a few crazies out there who think someone's trying to ruin their way of life or something.  Anyhow, she assured me that everything was fine and Mill was just being a little overprotective, but to be sure to keep Katie's mom and dad in the loop on all we were doing and not to be too adventurous since we'd both be new to the area.  Little did I know that we'd never even get the chance.

We hadn't been on L4 more than 48 hours when Katie's dad told us that we'd be attending some fancy dinner party being held by the Diplomatic Corps for some local dignitaries and their families.  Katie's mom, who's temporarily on leave from the job, took us shopping for some new outfits to wear to the party the next day.

At the party we met a bunch of the other DC kids, turns out a few of them attend the same school Katie'll be at and we hit it off with quite a few of them.  We spent most of the night at a table we confiscated for ourselves doing the meet & greet and getting to know them.  They even offered to take us around the next day and show us some of the hot spots they hang out at and what places to avoid.  It took a while but one of them finally put together a few facts: what my last name was, who I looked like, where Katie's family had come from  - and therefore me by extension – and eventually who I was.  I'd kind of hoped that no one would make the connection and when it didn't come up in conversation after the first hour or so, I figured I'd be OK.  But when Rachel Simmons' eyes started glazing over while looking at me and she lowly uttered 'Oh my God, Helena Yuy… that means you're… you're her daughter, THE daughter…' Can we say _I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me_???  What surprised me was that they did not have that same awe-of-God reaction some of my long-time school friends have about who my mom and her friends are.  I got the usual questions like, 'wow, what's she like to live with', 'is she really as nice as she appears to be', 'you must know the other pilots', 'is your uncle as handsome in person as he is on the vid-reports', 'have you ever met (fill in your choice of famous person)'.  Like I said, the usual, but they were much more cool about it.  None of them got weirded out with me or treated me any differently, they just thought it was cool.  I guess being a diplomat's kid makes all the difference, they had met some of the same dignitaries that I had, one of the guys had met my mom when he'd gone to some conference with his parents, stuff like that.  And then Rachel's boyfriend, Tom, dropped the summer's second bomb when he says 'Hey, you know, I think Mr. Winner's here tonight! Didn't you say you knew him? My mom's company does business with him and I think she mentioned to my dad that he was coming.'

Well damn, Uncle Quatre was there!  I hadn't seen him since the weekend of my birthday and I figured it would be real nice to see him again.  So we split up into two groups to go ask the parents if anyone knew for sure.  When we ran across each other after a few stops, we found out that he was there but the other group had been admonished not to disturb him.  Of course, knowing that he was there just meant we were determined to find him, and we did, after only about 20 minutes.  We approached the group of men cautiously, they seemed to be having a serious discussion.  We hovered close by for a little while before one of them noticed us – imagine a group of like nine teenagers huddled around and only one guy notices us.  But when he did all attention shifted to us and as soon as Quatre saw me, it made my day.  His face lit up with the biggest smile I'd ever seen and he practically spilled his drink when he jumped forward with his arms out to pick me up in the kind of bear hug I only ever get from either Duo or Mill.  He spun me around like three times before he finally put me back down and started asking what I was doing there, if mom was with me, how I'd managed to grow so much since the last time he saw me. (RIGHT!)  Anyhow, after a while he seemed to get himself under control again and he introduced me to the men he was speaking to; I in turn introduced them to Katie and our new friends.  He told me that he was going to be around for at least another two or three days and said he wanted to see me again.  We exchanged phone numbers and he promised to call to make arrangements to get together again before he left and we talked for a little longer before I excused myself, so he could get back to whatever he'd been doing before we interrupted. As we walked away I heard one of the other men ask him if we were family or just friends and I don't think I'll ever forget what he said. "Family, unofficially.  Despite the fact that I have several children of my own, I love that girl like a daughter.  I consider her father to be one of my closest friends ever and I owe him my life, I'd do anything for her and her mother. He was like a brother to me, so… yes, I guess we are family."

I was hmmm pleased? Not really shocked or overwhelmed, but umm touched, I guess.  I know that he and all my other 'uncles' really care about me, but I guess I'd never thought about it that way, he said it with such emotion and conviction, I just, I don't know, it affected me.  I mean, yeah, I know Duo feels that way and I love him like that right back.  Now that I've gotten to know Trowa, I know he cares a great deal for me and mom.  And while Wufei's a bit tight-lipped and all, I know he had great respect for both mom & dad and he, in his own words, "is honored to be a part – however small or insignificant - of my life" and that I "should never hesitate to call upon him for anything".  I think I still have that birthday card around here somewhere

Anyhow, I guess it was obvious how much it had affected me because before I realized it, Katie was walking right up along side of me, giving me a reassuring squeeze and a smile and nod of understanding.  She'd heard it too and she told me that night when we were getting ready for bed that I should consider myself the luckiest person in the universe cause sometimes even 'real' family members aren't that passionate about their own.  She's right, I am rather lucky in that.

The next day we were off exploring.  Rachel, Tom, Kelly, Annie, Antonio and his sister Clara, all came by in the morning to take us out on the town.  They drove us around for a few hours just showing us where they usually hung out, the best places to eat, the malls, the arcades, the movie theaters; everything and anything.  Early in the afternoon, we stopped at the biggest mall around and hit the food court, then spent a few hours window shopping.  We took in an early movie, then they showed us were the best clubs were and finally brought us back to Katie's.  We were both so exhausted that we went straight to bed that night.  They'd already planned out the next day for us, they would drive us by the school, just to show Katie where it was, then we were going to Rachel's house to spend the afternoon in the pool and have a barbeque that night.  Apparently Rachel's mom works with Katie's dad, so the parents would be at the barbeque also.  It was while we were out that day that Quatre called.

Katie's mom had invited Quatre over for dinner the following day, it seems mom had introduced them on one of his visits to us and Katie's mom thought it would be nice to see him again.  Most of that day we spent recovering from all the activities of the previous days; we lounged around the house a bit and finished straightening out all Katie's knick-knacks and books and stuff.  It was great to see Quatre and be able to spend some time with him in a more casual environment.  We updated each other on what had been happening in our respective lives, he showed us pictures of the new baby and the rest of the kids, we talked a bit about Michael and what he was doing for the summer, and how long I'd be staying with Katie's family.  He invited me to spend a few days with him before returning home and even offered to call mom and ask.  Before he left that evening he pulled me aside to tell me that he'd been in touch with Duo and knew what was going on, he said there was no new news from my dad but they were still trying, he had joined the cause and was 'doing what he could to help out'.  I told him how much I appreciated what he and the guys were doing for me and that I'd never be able to repay them their kindness.  He looked at me sadly and raised a hand to his chest, I thought he was going to get down on his knees and swear an oath or something, when he said that he knew, deep in his heart, just how I was feeling and that there was nothing for me to repay him, it was the least he could for me.  He kissed me on the forehead, ruffled my bangs a bit and then sighed and said, "you so remind me of your father, Helena, and we miss him so terribly badly, I just wish I could fix this, I wish I could bring him back." 

I almost cried right then, I don't think I'd ever seen Quatre so sad, and for some reason it just broke my heart.  The memory of the day we watched the vid from my dad came flashing back into my mind, how broken and helpless they had all seemed, mom, Duo, Trowa, even Mill was upset and I know he and dad were never the best of friends.  What was it about him that inspired such fierce loyalty in his friends and loved ones.  As soon as he left I felt very tired and excused myself to go to bed.  I think I missed my laptop that night, more than any other day I was gone.  I desperately needed to get out my emotions and this journal has become such an easy and fulfilling way to do it, instead I cried myself to sleep.  Now that I think about it, maybe this is why dad wrote and drew in his journals, to be able to let loose the things he was feeling.  I can't imagine how hard it must have been for him, after all those years of bottling it up, no wonder he had so much to say.  That night I cried, not just for me or mom or dad's friends, but for him as well; how sad must he have been when he was my age, how hard must it have been not to have someone to talk to, how alone must he have felt with no one to love or to guide him.  No wonder they all admire him so much and have forgiven him so completely, I think now I understand a little better who he was.

I love you dad, I won't give up on you, I'm going to bed now, I think I need to cry a little more

Journal Entry 08.19.AC215

To Whom It May Concern:  

My apologies for the way I ended my last entry.  

HY.

What am I doing, apologizing to my journal?  I think I'm losing it! 

*****  CTRL-A  DEL*****[1]

Journal Entry 08.19.AC215

OK! Another day, another journal entry!  Today, we pick up the saga of the eternally depressed and morose Helena Yuy, someone with much to live for who insists on depressing herself for no better reason than that she can.  SNAP OUT OF IT CHICK!

*****  CTRL-A  DEL*****

This is getting seriously weird.  Concentrate.  It's OK to get the mopes once in a while, but they're over now and you still have a lot of catching up to do.  Good thing there's no rule that says I can't erase what I've written.  Alright, get a grip, Quatre came over for dinner, what happened after that.

Journal Entry 08.19.AC215

Picking up from where I left off:  The next few days were spent like the ones before, we hung out with our new group of friends, we hung out at Katie's and helped out with the last bit of settling in, we talked, we goofed, we basically did what we'd always done when we were together, we acted like morons.  OK, maybe not morons, but we acted our age.  While we were watching a movie a few days before I was supposed to leave, we remembered some joke that Michael had told that one day we all hung out at my house and realized that we both kind of missed him, so we went to Katie's room to send him an email. Turns out he was on line and so we set up a chat between us.  He said he'd been wondering if he'd offended me in some way since I hadn't replied to any of his emails in the past week and a half.  We laughed and brought him up to date on what we'd been doing.  He was off doing some summer studies in England – something he hadn't planned to do - and was having a great time, he wouldn't be home until right before school started up again.  which reminds me, when does he get back again? Oh tomorrow, great!  I told him that I'd seen 'our' uncle and he'd invited me to go stay with him and Michael encouraged me to take him up on it.  He said Quatre had the coolest home, the kids were great and that his aunt was one of a kind, he thought we'd 'get on famously'.  It was funny the way he worded things some times, and I told him so, then he pretended to be completely offended and swore vengeance in the form of ruining my academic record and reputation.  I told him that he'd need to be a cut-rate computer hack to do that and therefore I knew he wouldn't be able to.  That ended that line of threatening.  I told him I'd get in touch with mom and let her know why he hadn't been by for dinner, lest she be offended by his absence, then we talked for a while longer.  We ended up logging off when it was time to go to dinner.  I promised to let him know where I'd be, and he promised to try to keep in touch.  

After dinner it occurred to me that I hadn't checked my emails in almost three weeks so Katie and I headed back to do just that.  We'd been so wrapped up in our travels and explorations that we hadn't used the computer at all until we emailed Michael.  There was nothing pressing or important waiting for me in my email, even though I'd almost worked myself into a frenzy worrying about what it.  I called mom after that, since it was my scheduled night to call, and we talked for a bit before the subject of Quatre's invitation came up.  She said he'd already called and that it was up to me, if I wanted to I could, he'd even managed to work an appointment planet-side into his schedule and had offered me a ride home on his private shuttle.  With an offer like that, how could I refuse, so when I was done talking to mom, we called Quatre and let him know, we made arrangements for when and where to meet and my travel plans were readjusted.  The rest of the time spent a Katie's was uneventful, well, not totally, seeing as we had plenty of events to attend, just nothing stellarly mind-blowing or even earth (or colony) shattering happened.  We were both a bit sad when it came time for me to leave, but you know what, the moms were right.  I think both Katie and I felt a lot better knowing that she was going to be OK, since we'd both had a chance to check out her new home and new friends together. I felt like I was leaving her in good hands, and the gang promised to keep in touch through email whenever they could.

Michael was right, by the way, Quatre's was a great place!  First off, the place was HUGE! Palatial, even.  Apparently it was Quatre's family's home when he was a kid, and being that the guy has like a million sisters, well, I guess they needed the space.  I think it's even larger – square footage-wise – than the Peacecraft Estate, yeah we're talking BIG here.  I have no idea how many rooms it had, but it had like two kitchens and two formal dining rooms that seat like 30-40 people each, an informal dining room, the kids had two playrooms one each on the first and second floors.  There were two recreation/relaxation rooms on the first floor alone, one had a pool table, a ping pong table and games tables of all sorts; the other was like the entertainment center – talk about a home theatre! – you could have fit like fifty people in there sitting down.  There were bathrooms and closets and libraries and offices everywhere you turned.  At one point when Aisha was showing me around I asked her if the house had once been a school dormitory and she laughed at me saying that with 30 children it'd have to be like a small dormitory.  Wow! 30 children, I can't even begin to imagine. I remember thinking Quatre's mom must have been a saint to have and raise that many kids.  Unbelievable!

By the way Michael was right about everything else, too.  Aisha and I did get along great and I told him so the third night I was there when I emailed him from one of the kid's computers (the kids have two).   They're smart little buggers, too, Hassan, who' s 8, and Mohsen, 7, are absolutely amazing; they are currently being home schooled by a tutor – apparently a Winner family tradition – and it's incredible how smart they are.  All the children are friendly, adorable, polite and just perfect.  And Quatre is unbelievably sweet and attentive with them.  In the whole time I was there he never came home later than 6pm, of course he left for work by 5:30 every morning, but he was always there to spend time with them before and after dinner, and Aisha says that's the way he always is.  He also found time to spend alone with me.  I felt kind of guilty that we were leaving Aisha out when we did have our little evening talks but she said she didn't mind, she'd graciously excuse herself to tend to other things so we had some time to ourselves.  

We had some very nice talks.  Nothing as shocking or mind blowing like when I'd talked to Trowa those two times on L2, but I guess once those cats were out of the proverbial bag, there wasn't much left to shock me with.  We did talk about my dad a lot.  I asked him the same thing I'd asked Duo, if he thought dad was ruthless, machine-like.  He said that at first he had, not really ruthless just hard and cold; but that during the time they spent together dad had helped him.  He'd seen that there was more to him than just the soldier.  He was kind and considerate, he encouraged Quatre not to give up hope, not to lose his perspective, and most importantly Quatre found that he was selfless to a fault.  It seems that in that time dad did everything he could to keep Quatre and mom and Aunt Lu out of battle.  He recklessly ran around trying to solve the problems that presented themselves and to keep anyone else from getting hurt, more than once risking his own life.

He also told me a little about that Zero System Duo had mentioned, explained a bit what it was and how it worked, which was kind of scary; he told me about how he and dad had come to earth during that time that Trowa had amnesia and how they as well as the other pilots had sort of floundered around trying to find direction in their lives for a while.  He told me he and dad had disagreed on what they should be doing, his experience with the Zero System had had a profound affect on him and Quatre had been doubting what his continued role in the conflicts should be. Dad had decided that he needed to continue fighting to protect the innocent people being bullied and manhandled by Oz and Romafeller, regardless of who he was fighting with.  Innocent people were being used for political gain and he refused to stand around and do nothing.  It was a confusing time when no one was certain who was in the right and who was in the wrong.  Mill had recently parted ways with Oz, Gen. Kushrenada had been placed under house arrest, the Sank Kingdom, under mom's direction, was trying to convince nations across the world to adopt a pacifist stance, Lady had been seriously injured and with the exception of him and dad, none of the pilots knew where the others were.

Eventually they all went back into space for what would eventually be the final show-down of the Eve Wars and I was surprised when Quatre explained that it was the first time the pilots had really acted as a cohesive group.  He said it was those last few days of battle that eventually made the difference in their friendships.  My dad, Quatre said, was the one that made them realize that unless they acted in a concerted effort they would never be able to end the conflicts and while he kept the last piece of the Libra from crashing to earth, my dad never considered himself to have been single-handedly responsible for saving the planet as so many claimed.  Quatre says dad once argued that despite his reckless disregard for his own safety in the last moments; without Wufei retrieving the buster rifle, without Duo getting the scientists to the Peacemillion, without Trowa dismantling the Mobile Dolls Controls, Quatre and the Maguanacs blowing up everything in sight, without all of them working together the conflicts could have raged on.  My dad just had a way of being the one who most frequently put himself in the most immediate danger.  A beautiful person, a heart of gold, a selfless and dedicated soul, that's what Quatre remembers most about my dad.  

Selfless and dedicated, makes me wonder how someone who'd apparently never been given much love or affection could have learned those two most humane traits.  Not all our conversations were that heavy, but it was nice to have another person to talk to who knew him well and loved him dearly.  I am so glad that I took up Quatre's offer to come visit, I might never have learned about that side of him.  It's kind of funny actually how each of his friends took away such a strong impression of him and how those impressions differ from person to person, yet how deeply he affected them all.  How could he not have realized how important he was to these people, how could he not have realized what an effect he had on them and how beautiful and precious he was to them, how could he have spent so much time trying to find meaning and purpose in his life when he had shared so much with so many.  I guess we never really know how deeply our own actions affect the people around us. I am so sorry he never learned, I am so sorry we will not get to teach him.

So here I am, back at home, waiting for school to start up again.  Michael gets back tomorrow, school starts in just over a week, my senior year in high school, my last year as a "child".  

***** 

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK 

"Helena, sweetie, Michael's on the phone for you."

"I'll be right there mom. Thanks."

"OK, I'll be reading in my room if you need anything. G'night"

"'Night mom"

*****

Well, I guess it's time to go again.  Don't know when the next entry will be, I imagine things will get a bit hectic again for a while.  

*****  

SAVE

EXIT

Hello, Michael?  

Hey! how are you, I didn't expect to hear from you tonight….

*****

Journal Entry 10.26.AC215

Oh good God, I can't believe I didn't think of this before.  I am so excited I can't wait to hear back from one of them.  I'm sure they'll want to talk to mom about this so rather than calling, I emailed them both the same note.  I hope they don't take their time responding, I don't think I can wait very long without busting a gut.  OK, but in the mean time I have to think about what I want to say, what should I say – man I never really thought about this, what does someone say to their father after all this time.

OK calm down, think rationally, you have to be ready for some possible resistance, get your thoughts together, make a plan, explain yourself

First things first.  I love Michael Faroq.  Let it be duly noted that the man is a GOD in my book.  OK, so he's good looking, but that's not I'm talking about here.  Michael came to spend the weekend, Mom and I picked him up at the airport on Friday, we hung out all day Saturday, we went to the movies that night, we stayed up talking til all hours of the morning, and on Sunday we spelunked.  Alright so he wanted to see the infamous chest and the notebooks and the pictures and I hadn't quite recovered from my slight case of spelunking-withdrawal from the summer, so on Sunday right after lunch we hit the chest with a vengeance and while we're talking he innocently says to me, 'so have you tried contacting him yourself?'  He asks like it's the most natural question in the world, right?  So I get a little miffed, I mean he knows the score, he knows there's no way for anybody – let alone me – to get a hold of him.  We'd been sitting shoulder to shoulder looking through some pictures, so I lean away from him and I'm just sitting there staring at him incredulously when he says, 'don't look at me like I just grew an extra head, did it ever occur to you to contact him yourself?'  

So I tell him 'What are you, nuts? Don't you think that if we could just get a hold of him we would?  Haven't you been paying attention here?  The man is hiding out, his friends have been actively trying to get him to respond to their transmissions, messages, notes, valentines, miss-you-grams, whatevers, for months and he hasn't replied to any of them!  What the heck do you expect me to do, huh?'  Then it's my turn to get the you-just-grew-an-extra-head look, and he says 'send him a note, dummy, from you not them, you send a note, valentine, miss-you-gram, whatever.'

I'm about to object to being called a dummy when I realize what he's suggesting, and then I realize that it never even occurred to me.  Or Duo, or Trowa, or Quatre, or Wufei – yeah he knows, or mom or anybody else, HELLO!  Can we say, dingbats!  I mean for God's sake, how could it not have occurred to any us that if after all this time he wanted to make contact with me, he risked hurting all these people and risked being seen – he was in town and there are lots of people here who know him – then it must be because he felt very strongly about it.  And if he felt so strongly about it, then I might be the one to get a reaction out of him.  I mean, granted, we don't even know if he's getting any of the messages they're sending him, but it cant' hurt, right?  So before he leaves for the airport, Michael and I go up to my room and send an email to Duo and Trowa.  He says what I need to do now is give some thought to what I'm gonna say to my dad if they all agree to let me contact him.  Right now I'm not sure if I want to go for the jugular and hit him with an all-out guilt trip, or go the demure route and do the beg-and-plead on the heartstrings things.

Did I mention that I absolutely love Michael Faroq.  He's the best, a genius, as a matter of fact, I think he should be heralded as one of the great minds of the universe and his picture should be posted across the galaxy as one of the most wonderful men alive.  OK, so I'm going a little overboard but I can't help it, I'm excited.   I couldn't ask for better friends, he and Katie are the best friends a person could ever have. I sent her an email right after I sent the guys' email, just to let her know what was happening.

And now, I wait.  Michael left for the airport an hour ago.  I'm here all by my lonesome again; mom had a dinner to go to, Katie's on L4, Michael's on his way back to London – oh, I didn't mention that did I, he decided to take a position at a very prestigious school there for the year, but he should be coming back for the winter break – so I'm on my own and I have no one left to talk to right now.  I think I need to start getting used to this.

~~ to be continued ~~

[1]  CTRL_A DEL:  She was deleting what she'd written.  Control_A = selects all text.

Notes:  

First, I just realized that I made Helena a 16-yr-old HighSchool Senior, may be a tad on the young side, sorry I goofed somewhere, let's just blame it on the advancements in technology & education in the AC Universe!?!?!?!.  

Thanks again everybody for the encouraging emails (Storm/Kate, CeremonialBlood, Vetgirl, KatYuy, DruidKeep); and thanks to the ff.net reviewers for your comments (WingZero, PatateYuy, KnighteWolf, TinaYuy, BlazeWing, GrazingGoat).  Sorry for the looong delay between postings, things have been a little hectic with work and I was suffering from a mild case of writer's block, every time I sat down to write what came out was definitely NOT Scottish – it was all CRAP! (I love that lineJ)  I may be adding one more chapter - a side story type, I think, for the next part. Please feel free to let me know what you think of this:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer:  Oh yeah, have I mentioned they're not mine?


	12. Chapter 12

**The Journal, Chapter 12**

By BadMomma 

… thoughts

***** . . . ***** "live" action that takes place.

Notes at the bottom.

Journal Entry 11.05.AC215 

Wow, what a birthday present!  OK, so it's not quite my birthday yet but I'll consider this an early present.  Mom, Duo, Trowa and I had a talk a couple of days ago and everybody agreed that it would be a good idea for me to send dad a message.  Their attempts haven't work yet so it can't hurt if I try.  It was decided that Trowa, since it's his thing, would set me up and show me how to post messages to the services that he uses to contact dad; there are three sites that he posts to and he filled me in on how to address them and what to say to get the message across.  It's not like he just posts a message saying 'hey Heero, got a message for you'.  Apparently we'll be sticking to the covert method of communication.  It's a little funky but I think I got the hang of it.  There's even an encryption program that he sent me in case I wanted to attach a document or something to my post.

So, now three days and several conversations later I have finally successfully sent my first set of posts to my father.  I took the time to call Michael and talk to him about what I should send.  In the end, what he said was that only I could decide what to say, but we talked through the multitude of ideas that had been swimming in my head for the last couple of weeks.  He helped me sort out the drivel – you know the melodramatic stuff – and figure out what I really wanted to get across.  I don't know how or why I've come to rely on Michael so much, but I really think that without his friendship and support I would have been one messed up puppy.  We talk almost constantly much more than Katie and do, and whether it's on-line or on the phone more often than not it's he who calls me.  His phone bill must be through the roof!  Life is kind of funny that way, it sends you a little angel-in-disguise when you least expect it.  I am so grateful for his friendship and his love that I can't begin to think of a way to repay him.  But I guess that's the clincher, when friendship and love are offered there's no expectation of a reward, or it wouldn't truly be friendship and love.

And for the record, what I said to my dad was that I really missed not having him in my life, but that I don't begrudge his not being there cause I'm sure he had his reasons.  I told him that everyone must make their own decisions in life as to what they do even if nobody else knows why you did it.  I told him that I'd love to see or meet or talk to him, but that if he couldn't bring himself to do it, I'd understand.  If all his friends could accept his absence and still love him, then so could I.  And I told him that I loved him.

I hope it makes a difference.

Journal Entry  01.01.AC216 

Oh jeez, I think I'm in love.  Actually, I think I fell in love and didn't realize it until just now.  Or maybe, I'm making a mountain out of a mole-hill but I can't help it.  What else am I supposed to think when I've just had what can only be classified as a first kiss.

Alright technically, it's not my first kiss.  There was that little matter of Tommy Jergens when I was a freshman, but I don't think that really counts since (A) I was thirteen, (B) it was sort of done on a dare and (C) it was more like a drive-by-kissing than anything else.  I'll explain.  We were at Harry Corbin's house for his birthday party and there were a few of his older brother's friend there as well – they were sophomores.  We all thought that Harry's parents were the coolest because as soon as the party started they disappeared into another part of the house and didn't reappear unless someone's parents showed up; so of course it was like we had the run of the place and being that we were all pretty much goof balls you could say that things deteriorated a bit.  The older boys there were trying to show up the younger boys and they kept asking the girls to dance and flirting with us.  Tommy was one of the cutest guys in his class, he was a sophomore, so when he asked me to dance I readily accepted. Everything was going smooth as silk until the song was ending and he leaned in and bussed me.  I was caught off guard and kind of embarrassed so I pulled back right away, smiled weakly, then turned tail and fled.  I found out later in the evening that all the sophomore boys were doing that as a way to shower their manly superiority over the freshman boys. It really bugged me and the rest of my friends, so we started ignoring them.  I remember one of the girls saying that it really sucked that her first kiss was from some jerk that was just trying to prove a point, when somebody pointed out that if you didn't respond to the kiss – as in kissing back – it didn't really count.  So there you have it.  Not my first kiss.

Of course, by that definition, what happened not even a few hours ago was definitely my first kiss.  What happened last night was a prelude to it.  Alright, I know I'm not being clear here so let me expound.

We were supposed to go to a New Year's Eve party at one of mom's coworker's – it's the same group who rotates the location of the party every year - but mom's been sick lately, so we bowed out at the last minute.  Of course, Michael was here for the holiday break to visit with his family and he was going to be our date for the party – mom's and mine.  Mom tried to convince us to go without her but we didn't want to, there was no point to it and I preferred to stay home and celebrate with her.  She stayed up just long enough to ring in the New Year, watch some fireworks from the veranda and then she excused herself to go to bed.  Michael and I stayed out there and ended up just hanging out and talking for several hours.  Well, it began with talking.  After catching each other up on what had been happening lately cause we hadn't had a chance to talk since he'd come to town, I mentioned that I was feeling kind of mopey.  I had talked to Katie in the morning and it just reinforced the fact that at this same time last year we were together.  Inevitably the conversation turned to my dad.

It's been almost two months since I posted my message to my dad and we haven't had a response yet.  I don't know if I really expected him to reply right away or what, but I guess deep down inside I'd held a flicker of hope that my message would have made the difference.  I honestly don't even know if he's seen the message.  Trowa explained that there's really no way to know if he's accessed it, that the only way we'll know for sure is if dad replies. 

So of course, I'm feeling sad that Katie's not around for New Year's for what feels like the first time in my life, I haven't heard anything from my dad, I haven't seen my uncles in like forever, mom's been sick lately and it's the first time I'd seen Michael in over two months.  I was feeling a little down, a little lonely.  Michael came over and hugged me and held me for a little while as I foolishly broke down and cried.  No sobbing heart-ache stuff or anything, just sappy, whimpering and tears crap.  He stood there stroking my hair, rubbing circles on my back and reassuring me; telling me it was OK to cry, telling me to go ahead and let it all out, telling me that he was there for me and that he really didn't mind at all that I was essentially soaking his favorite sweater.  That last comment finally made it through the haze of tears and stupidity and it garnered a laugh from me.  He kissed the top of my head then pushed my shoulders back to look at me.  He smiled and said he was glad that his misfortune was a cause for humor, we both laughed that time.  He pulled me close again and held me tighter than before; he said he wished he could do more to help me, to make things right for me.  I thanked him then, for his friendship, for his support, for his love.  I told him that without him I would've been a mess these last few months and that I was so glad he was a part of my life.  He cupped my face in his hands and said that I was a lot stronger than I gave myself credit for, that I should believe in myself and not give up hope.  He kissed me on the forehead and then pulled me into a hug again. This time it felt less urgent, it was warm and comforting.  It felt good.  

After a minute or two he asked me how many messages I'd sent and when I told him only one, he suggested that I write more.  He said that maybe my dad had seen it and hadn't responded for the same reason he hadn't responded to the guys' messages.  Maybe, if I wrote to him more, sent him other messages he might eventually respond.  Rather than just repeating what I'd said, Michael suggested that I start carrying on a running conversation with my dad.  'Tell him about yourself' he said, 'tell him about things he wouldn't know from just observing you – tell him what you think, how you feel, what's going on in your life – make it like your living journal'.  That thought struck me hard. A living journal.  I could send him excerpts from my journal.  It is the one place where all my thoughts and feelings have been accumulated and it would really let him know a lot about me; just like I learned about him through his and about mom through hers.  This was it.  This was the best idea I'd heard in a long time and I told him so.

I turned to face him, grabbed his head in my hands, and I thanked him, repeatedly, between kissing his cheeks and his forehead – for which I practically had to stand on my toes.  He finally stopped my babbling thanks by holding my face steady in both his hands and quietly saying 'you're welcome', then he leaned in and placed a quick kiss on my lips.  'You're welcome' he repeated staring me right in the eyes, 'I'm glad I could make you so happy' then he pulled me against him again.  I could hear his heart beating rapidly in his chest, it was running at the same speed as mine.  I felt warm again, only this time I felt it mostly on my face.  I was blushing.

It was several minutes before he broke the silence by saying that it was getting late and he should probably head out.  It would take him forty-five minutes to get home and he needed to get up kind of early to meet a friend at the university at ten.  I got his coat and walked him to the door.  He put it on as I opened the door for him.  He started to step past me on his way out but before crossing the threshold he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek saying only a quiet goodnight.  Then he was gone.  I closed the door behind him and just leaned forward with my forehead resting on the door.  A few minutes later, with my heart still thudding in my chest, I went to bed.

He showed up this afternoon, a little before two o'clock, bearing flowers and an overly cheerful smile.  Mom and I were just finishing up lunch when he arrived and he sat with us at the table for a while.  He asked mom how she was feeling and if he could do anything for her.  She politely declined and said she was just going to rest for a while before trying to catch up on some work later in the afternoon.  She's really been out of it lately and the holiday season didn't necessarily guarantee less work for her.

Things were a little awkward once she was gone and I milled about trying to look like I had more clean up to do than our lunch had required.  He finally broke the ice by suggesting we take a walk down to the lake, it being a nice day and all despite the fact that it was a little chilly out.  I agreed and went up to get a sweater from my room.  I caught myself standing at the closet door trying to figure out which would look best with the clothes I had on and felt like a fool.  I swore at myself and finally grabbed the nearest sweater, it was a slightly oversized beige thing with cables and cords patterned down the front; it reminded me of those sweaters you always see fishermen wearing in the movies.  I pulled it over my head and went down to meet him.  Michael was waiting for me at the back door, he held it open for me and we set out towards the lake.  

We were nearly at the shore when he broken the silence again.  He apologized 'for last night' and then said nothing more.  I was about to ask specifically what about last night he was apologizing for when he said that he hadn't meant to make me feel uncomfortable by kissing me and that he was really sorry.  He said he didn't regret kissing me just doing it without asking, but that he would understand if I was mad.  He was going into some tirade about how he knew it was wrong of him to do and how it would affect our friendship and that he hoped we could get past it and still be good friends - he still hadn't looked me in the eye.  I grabbed his wrist and waited until he looked up at me.  I told him that I wasn't mad, I was a little shocked but not mad.  He let out a big gush of air and said 'thank God!  I was so worried I'd totally screwed up everything between us last night.'

That caught me by surprise, 'Why, Michael, why would you think that you'd screwed something up between us?'  His answer took me a bit more by surprise.

'Because I like you Hel' he answered after just a short pause, 'Really like you, and I'm not entirely sure how you feel about me.' I opened my mouth to reply but he continued on as if he just needed to get it all out before I said anything.  'Look' he told me 'I know I'm a bit older than you, but not by much' he chuckled and swiped a hand through his hair nervously 'hell, my parents have a bigger age difference than us, but I guess, I don't know, I guess I'm not sure how everybody would react if I asked you out like on a date and stuff, you know your mom, my uncle, your other uncles?  I don't even know if you'd agree to it, yanno?  I like you, I wanna go out with you.  I was gonna wait til you graduated to ask but I… I couldn't help it last night.  You were right there and you were hurting and I wanted to make it all better.  Damn! and you were kissing me and you had your hands on my face and we were so close that I… I just couldn't help it!'  He kind of grimaced, it looked like he was trying to convey the fact that while he didn't really regret it, he still sort of did.  Am I making any sense here?  'I'm sorry, Helena. Sorry I took advantage of you, sorry I rushed you.  It's not something friends should do to each other.'  He hung his head a bit to hide his eyes and turned a quarter of the way away from me.

It took me a few minutes to let everything he'd said sink in.  He liked me? Wow!  Like, boyfriend kind of liked me?  Double wow!  I hadn't really thought about it that way before.  I mean yeah, I liked him too, a lot.  He was my best friend.  It's not inconceivable that best friends further their relationships and start dating, it's happened before, right?  Sure! Look at Hilde and Duo, Sally and Wufei.  It had happened with them.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, no big deal.  The idea was growing on me.  I definitely found him attractive, Michael was a very good looking guy.  Yeah he was a little older than me, but not by that much, if it hadn't been for his advanced placement as a result of his tutors he would have been a senior in high school when I was – ugh! – in eighth grade, OK bad analogy. Let's see.  If go up and not down, we'd both be in college next year, there you go! That's not bad.  Hell, as soon as I graduated in May, I'd be in college, I'd be eligible in just a few months, if I started taking classes in the summer.  

A quiet 'maybe I should go' broke me out of my thoughts.  And I jumped at him practically yelling 'no'.

I grabbed him and hugged him and repeated the 'no'.  'No. Michael, don't go.  I'm not mad, and I… I think I like you too… like that!' I said.  Ooooh, I sounded so mature! 'Huh?' was his reply so I forged ahead before I had a chance to chicken out.  'I think I like you too' I repeated, then changed my mind 'no, I know I like you, a lot!  You're my best friend, you're a real sweet guy, and you're damned good looking too!' I laughed and he laughed with me.  I hugged him closer then more quietly, less frantically, said 'you're one of the best things that's ever happened to me, I don't know what I would have done without you.  I'm not mad that you kissed me, I just wasn't expecting it, that's all, and I guess, well, I was a little embarrassed.  I didn't really even get to enjoy it or anything and…' I felt him pull away from me a bit and looked up to meet the shock in his eyes as I realized what I had just said.  Oh, now I was really embarrassed, until he smiled at me, and then he leaned in very slowly, when we were almost touching again he breathed 'may I?' and I just barely nodded before he closed the distance between us.  It was still a gentle smooth little kiss, but this time I kissed back.  We held it for just a bit before he pulled back and just held onto me.  'Thank you Hel, I thought I'd made a mess of things' was all he said for a while as I listened to the beating of his heart.

We didn't do much else but talk then, still holding on to each other.  We decided that we would keep things mostly at the same level that they'd been at up and until now and not really officially start dating until I finished school.  It's not like it was such a big deal, we'd gone out to the movies or to the mall together before but we weren't sure how everyone would react.  He had after all been an assistant teacher at my school last year.  He wasn't now, but it was just kind of too close for comfort.  Of course, the fact that he is returning to England in a few days and probably wont' be back until May would interfere with a dating relationship anyway.  So we left it at that.  

He left just a couple of hours later.  He kissed me once more at the door and then made a joke about it being a good thing that he'd be in the next continent for a few months cause he could really get used to doing that.  There's a chance I may not see him again before he leaves – he's got commitments with family and other friends he hasn't seen in a while, but he promised to try to swing by at least once more.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him again, but for now I'm just sitting here feeling all tingly and shit with a huge grin on my face.  

Of course, if I decide to send dad entries from my journal, I guess he'll see this too.  

So, what do you think dad?  Your little girl's really growing up, huh?  Good thing Duo won't be reading this, or I might never hear the end of it.  Don't tell him, OK?  But then again, what's the chance that he won't know by the time you see this?  I guess I have to figure out now how I'm gonna send you these and how often I'm gonna do it.  Maybe I'll send you one journal entry a month, give you time to think about it, digest what I've written, see how you feel about it before hitting you with the next bit of it.  One a month sounds good, there's let's see 24 entries, 25 counting this one.  Maybe I won't get around to sending this one at all and it'll be my little secret.  I sure hope you break long before this entry.  I want so badly to see you, to meet you, to talk to you, to hold you in my arms and have you hold me too.  I love you dad, always will, whatever the reasons, whatever the circumstances.  I love you.

~~ to be continued ~~

Notes:  Thanks again to everyone who has written to comment and encourage me; I really appreciate it.  Makes me remember there are people waiting for me to get off my duff and finish this.  Which I will.  Take care y'all, talk to ya' soon.  Also, thanks Faya for beta-reading.  Write me:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Disclaimer:  Still don't own them, still wish I did.


	13. Chapter 13

**The Journal, Chapter 13**

**By BadMomma**

**Journal Entry:  5.2.AC216**

It's just a little after noon and I've already had a pretty full day.  Today I sent the fifth of my journal entries to my dad.  Since getting up this morning around 9am, I have encrypted my file for privacy, accessed and loaded my message on three separate message servers, run the search program that looks for the reply patterns Trowa and my dad established and run the decryption program to check the few messages that were flagged as possibilities.  Unfortunately, they were all garbage.  No response yet.  I'm trying not to get too discouraged, but it's hard.  I know everyone is right, I can't change in the course of a few months what hasn't changed in 14 years.  It's just so frustrating!!!!!!!!

I guess that despite how hard I tried to convince even myself that I would not get my hopes up, I did.  I guess it's only natural.  I felt an overwhelming power – for lack of a better word – that led me to believe somewhere deep inside that my messages would be the ones to break the self-induced exile my dad found himself in.  What a moron I am.  If his best friends couldn't coax him out of it for all these years, what could I hope to accomplish in a few short months.  

Damnit!  He reached out to me!  Now I'm reaching back and he won't reply.

OK, so maybe he doesn't know that I'm reaching out, we have no way of knowing if he's even checking those accounts anymore.  He may never see my messages unless he feels the need to send Trowa another message, and maybe by the time that happens my messages will have been purged from the server.  God, now there's a depressing thought, I could actually be wasting my time.

Alright, that kind of thinking is going to get me nowhere, I have to keep a positive attitude about all of this.  Both Michael and Katie have repeatedly told me that I can't expect an immediate response and that I shouldn't keep rehashing all of this but I always get so bummed after checking for responses and finding nothing.  Maybe I just need to up the stakes.  I mean it's not like I have anything to threaten him with but there's got to be a better way to get across how badly I want to see or just talk to him.  Shit, I'm thinking in circles again.  I wanna talk to him, I send him an email, I tell him I wanna talk to him, I send another email, and tell him again how I wasn't kidding and that I really wanna talk to him.  No, seriously, really, really wanna talk to him.  Oh, did I mention before that I wanna talk to him.  Well, why yes Helena, I do believe that in your last few journal entries you mentioned that you did indeed want to speak to your father!  OK.

Note to Self:  I think I'm cracking up!!!![1]

Point taken.  Use the journal for other things as well.  I seem to be obsessing here a bit, but I will force myself to think and write of other things.

Mom's sick again.  Nice change of topic there Hel!  She actually never fully recovered from her 'holiday cold' as it were.  So much so, that she finally agreed to go see a doctor about it.  She hates going to the doctor, but thank heavens she did.  The doc placed mom on temporary leave from work – forced – and placed her on a regimen of dietary supplements because her immune system was on the floor; she was running borderline dehydration and was just plain exhausted.  She's been doing quite a bit of traveling over the last few months which means she hasn't been taking care of herself.  It's been kind of weird actually.  It feels like I've only seen her every other week for the past three or four months.  And when the Maxwells came to earth for a visit in March, she was gone half the time.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the clan invaded for about two weeks?  Duo, yet again, managed to schedule a week's worth of meetings, followed by about a week of vacation.  It's a good thing that he's the director of the L2 Cluster Branch of Preventers and can arrange to be away from his office for a few weeks at a time every few months.  I imagine that this'll be the last year they can pull this off, since the boys will not be able to continue missing two weeks of school in the middle of spring every year.  I have to admit I'm going to miss it, it's great having them around - aside from the more obvious reasons.  That whole entire family is a source of never ending energy from the head of the family right down to the youngest of the brood.  

And what a little spitfire she is.  Her name is Greta Marie – named after Hilde's grandma and aunt - but her nickname is Cracker.  Yeah, I know, what the hell kind of nickname is that, right?  Well, in all its obscurity it actually defines the entire family.  It's short for Firecracker.  She fell in love with the things last year and constantly asks for them.  As a matter of fact she even asked me for them while sitting on Duo's lap during one of our phone calls a few months ago.  Throughout our whole conversation she kept saying 'ai-oh-ca-ko papa' and he just kept answering, 'yes baby girl, soon'.  When she realized he was brushing her off, she turned a very serious face to me and said 'pees, ai-oh-ca-ko nyenya', and gave me the most sorrowful look.  Heartbroken at the idea of denying her anything, I asked Duo what it meant and he told me.  I laughed so hard I almost peed in my pants.  I promised to show her my ai-oh-ca-kos when they came for a visit and that seemed to pacify her for a while.  Oh, and she asked me for them within minutes of arriving at the house.  Thank God that Duo had the foresight to bring some sparklers with him, he says he never leaves home without them anymore.  Just thinking about it now, I can't imagine what the baggage people at the space port would think if someone were to open their bags and find packs of sparklers in them.  

Anyhow….. now that I've lightened my own mood, perhaps I should catch up on what else has been going on.  You know, now that I think about it, the more I write this thing, the more it takes on the feel of a conversation.  Maybe it's just the knowledge that someone –who will remain unnamed for the balance of this entry – might eventually read this, or maybe not.  I find it flows quite well when I write as if my journal is an entity with whom I'm having a conversation.  And, as the old saying goes 'don't fix what ain't broke'.

Let's see, what else has happened lately… 

Wufei got married in February.  It was a very nice, though unusual, ceremony.  It was a combination of Oriental and Western traditions; in essence part Wufei – he was dressed in traditional garb - and part Maribeau – she was in a stellar white dress.  They both looked stunning and the ceremony was sweet and emotional.  The after party lasted forever and all his friends were there to celebrate with him. Sally had flown back to earth just for the event and spent most of the ceremony wiping away tears.  Also there were Duo, Hilde, Trowa, Quatre, Aisha, Lady, Mariemeia and her boyfriend, Lu, Mill, a bunch of Preventers who I've seen but who's names I can never remember and even one of the teachers from my school – apparently a friend of Maribeau's.  All in all it was nice and it was fun and it was a very happy event.

Aside from that my life has been, in a word, school; and I've got less than a month of it left at this point.  I've got two semester papers left to write, and then it's free sailing until the final exams, not that I'm nervous about it or anything.  I've been doing really well in my classes and while they've been very demanding I'm really happy with the teachers I got this year. Thank God Mr. Blair retired last year.  Soon school will be over and I'll just have to worry about taking my college entrance exams and we'll see what happens after that.  I haven't quite decided what I want to do with my life yet, maybe I'll just go with a general Liberal Arts curriculum until I can decide just what I want to do.  

I've talked to mom about maybe going back to L4 for a little while this summer, catch up with Katie for a bit and then head over to L2.  Hilde invited me to come visit again, while the kids are out of school, so we could all hang out together.  I was really looking forward to it, but if mom doesn't start feeling better soon I may put it off.

I guess I should wrap things up now.  I do have other things to do today and I promised mom to take her shopping this afternoon.  Leisurely shopping, since she's not supposed to be taxing herself.  She keeps joking that everyone's treating her as if she were 63 and not 36.  Yesterday I told her that if she didn't take better care of herself she wouldn't make it to 63.  She got a little sad when I said that, and I felt bad for doing it, but then she chuckled and said 'yes, but what a life I've led so far'.  I got to thinking, it's true.  Most people could live to be 100 and never see all the things that she's seen or experience all that she has.  Sometimes I think I envy the fullness of the life she's led, but then I remember the tragedies that she's witnessed and the losses she endured and I couldn't feel more ashamed for thinking that way, or any more proud that she is who she is today and that she is my mother.  

**Journal Entry 9.30.AC216**

My hands are shaking. I'm short of breath.  Oh hell! Get a grip! I don't know what to do.

I got a response.  deep breath, in, out

Yes, my father responded.  in, out

I went to post my 10th journal entry today and did the same things I always do.  Encrypt the file, load at server 1, run the search program, download possible replies, load at server 2, run the search program, download possible replies, load at server 3, run the search program, download possible replies, run the decryption, sit back and wait. in, out

Only today, there was more than just garbage.

How to sum up what he said?  It wasn't that much, I guess I could just paraphrase.  He's sorry to have caused me so much pain in the last year or two.  He never realized how much I was agonizing over all of this.  He still doesn't want to be found, but he understands that I have a lot of questions and he's willing to answer some of them.  Hm, some of them.  I wonder why not all?  Well it doesn't matter.  He's offering and I'm taking.  Who the hell cares what he'll agree to answer and what he won't, right now I don't think I can think straight.  What the hell am I writing anyway?  Just keep writing.  Read it later and make some sense of it after.  He'll talk to me. Damn, he already did – in a way.  

I guess number nine was a real doozy, must've hit him hard.  I'll have to reread that one, I haven't even been paying attention to what I wrote back then, I've just been loading the entries in the order they were written.  OK.  Now, what to do about this?  See he also said he doesn't really want anyone to know yet that he's been in touch with me.  Might be kind of hard since the uncles ask every time we talk.  Mostly I just talk to Duo, so I guess I'll just have to be creative without actually outright lying to him.  I don't want to lie, and dad doesn't want me to either.  So, what now?  I wonder if he'll agree to direct contact, maybe we can email each other.  It would cut down on the lag time between posting to the server and waiting for a response, I  wonder if he'd agree to that.  Can't hurt to try.  Right.  I'll ask.  

What else?  Oh shit! Trowa checks the servers too.  What if he finds out, I'll have to tell dad.  Don't want him to think I reneged on a promise.  Actually, that might make it easier to convince him on the more direct approach.  If we're not talking over the server, then the guys won't ever see it.  Secrecy, that's the key here.  I wonder if it's OK to tell Michael.  Shit, shit, shit  I really need to talk to him, but dad doesn't want anyone to know.  It's not like Michael will run and tell everyone if I ask him to keep quiet, not like he's the one that talks to the guys anyway. So I guess that might be alright.  I'll have to ask.  OK, gotta go.  Need to make sure I respond right away so that we can avoid any possible misunderstandings.

**Journal Entry 10.3.AC216**

He's agreed to the direct email. I've been checking the damn server three times a day for the last three days and finally something came in this afternoon.  

OK, he's gonna take care of deleting the last two communiqués, he's already deleted the previous one.  He says he knew that Trowa was checking the message servers too and that since I always post my messages at either the very end or the very beginning of the month, he knew when to post his message and when to take it down.  Sneaky little bastard isn't he.  He's good, gotta give him that.  Now as for the how, when and where.  

He's going to email me within the next couple of days, then he'll take any questions that I have for him.  So, aside from why'd you leave and why won't you come back, I really need to sit down and figure out what I want to say.  He did agree that it was OK for me to talk to Michael about it, but nobody else, not even Katie.  He even knew who Michael was, and I must say that was kind of freaky.  I guess he really has been keeping close tabs on me.  

Gotta go, need to talk to Michael.  I'm so excited, and nervous, and I feel like I'm gonna throw up! So many questions, so little time.

God please help me!  I want him back.

**Journal Entry 12.22.AC216**

Deflection.  I've become very good at deflection.  I now answer any questions about the success of my efforts with comments like:

1. He's still out there somewhere and not here with me, right?

2. There were no messages from him on the server this morning/afternoon/evening (depending on the time of day I'm asked).

3. I don't know where he is any more today than I did a year ago.

And the most popular reply lately,

4. Nothing's changed since yesterday.

Technically, those are all truthful and accurate answers.  Of course I also happen to neglect to mention that I have been in contact with him via email going on two months now.  I realize that this is splitting hairs, but as Duo taught me long ago, as long as the statement, in and of itself, is in fact true, then it can't be a lie.  You see:  My dad IS out there somewhere and not with me right now.  That is a true statement.  There HAVEN'T been any messages from him on the server lately, not since the last one he sent at the beginning of October, and nobody asked me back then, so that too IS true.  And I am still loading my journal entries at the servers, wouldn't want to give a wrong impression either.  I really DON'T know where he is today, any more than anyone has in a long time.  He knows where he is, but he hasn't told me where that is.  So, not a lie.  

And finally what has become my favorite answer of late, recently nothing HAS changed from the previous day, we're still emailing each other every few days, exchanging little tidbits of information about ourselves, and slowly getting to know each other a little better.  I have, at Michael's suggestion, asked a lot of the questions I had about the things he'd written in his journals, and what I'd seen on the vid disks he left behind.  I asked him to tell me more about what he'd seen and done, how he felt about where his life had taken him, things like that.  He even helped me out with some research I was doing for one of my school assignments; I'd jokingly asked in one of my emails if he knew anything about the Neo-Impressionist Movement in the AC Era and he replied a few days later with several websites that I should look at.  Shocked the hell out of me that he would be into that kind of stuff, but then again I don't really know him all that well.  He surprised me even more when he sent a gift basket on my birthday; it included a small arrangement of my favorite flowers, a teddy bear with a blue ribbon at the neck and a small pendant in the shape of angel wings.  I was so touched that I cried like an idiot until just before mom got home that day.  I think everyone assumes that Michael sent the gifts, and since no one's asked me directly I haven't felt the need to correct them.  Of course Michael knows who sent it, so for now it's our little secret.

There have been two areas of discussion that have rather obviously been avoided, his recent past and his reason for leaving.  Well, that's about to change.  Actually, I don't really care about getting the scoop on what he's been doing lately – aside from spying on us – what I really want to know is why won't he come back.  The more I talk to him the more it bugs me.  I don't want to drive him away, but I really want to know.  I know I'm treading on thin ice here, he might just decide it's not worth it to continue our discussions, such as they are; he might think me ungrateful for demanding the information when I know he's avoiding it.  But I watched the whole video he sent to mom, I saw the letter he left for Duo, I've read his goodbye message.  I think I deserve to know why.  And I'm going to tell him so.  

I can't help but feel a little strange about all this.  See, it's weird having these discussions with him about all sorts of stuff and avoiding those two issues.  We both know they're out there, we both know I want to know.  I have been rereading the journal entries I'm posting and it's quite clear that the need to get to know him better and the need to know why he did what he did has been driving me nuts for a while.  And how long can we stick to what, in the end, amounts to small talk.  If our relationship isn't going to move forward than I'd rather not keep this up, it's really not fair to me.  I want my father IN my life, not in the shadows, not some specter on the computer who will only allow emails but won't agree to meet me face to face – it's not like he can't.  I don't want to keep this a secret for the rest of my life.  I want to share what I have, what I know.  

I've been thinking about this for a few days now.  I think what I'm gonna do is tell him outright what I want.  I want to know why he left and I want him to meet me, face to face, at least once.  I just want to see him, touch him, hug him, tell him I love him – in the flesh.  And then we'll see if he can turn away again.  

Is it fair to put him on the spot like that.  Maybe, but then again, life's not fair and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something[2].  Is it a form of emotional blackmail?  Definitely.  Am I really gonna go through with it?

Oh yes, I'm definitely going to tell him.  

~~ to be continued ~~

[1] Hehehe!  GreenDay quote J

[2] Hehehe2!  Quote from the Princess Bride (by S. Morgan Stern… or is that Rob Reiner?)

NOTES:  Thanks for hanging in there with me, everyone.  This time we are truly coming to the end, just a little later than I expected (again!).  Just one more probably, but I promise to make it worth the wait.  Thanks DruidKeep for beta-reading for me and don't worry; I'm writing, I'm writing!!!!   Feel free to let me know what you think:  BadMomma64@aol.com

Later!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that they don't belong to me! (a.k.a. The Disclaimer)


	14. Chater 14

The Journal - Chapter 14 By BadMomma (badmomma64@aol.com)  
  
Note 1: I've done this chapter a little different than the rest so a quick note here at the start. This is the beginning of "the grand finale", thank you all for your support, encouragement, emails and reviews (and mild harassment, DK). This chapter will include some JEs, some POVs, some 3rd person and a ~something else~. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I never imagined when I started that it would take this long to crank out or turn out this involved. Thanks guys, and Happy New Year! (a little late, I know, gomen nasai) Ja! Note 2: Special thanks to DK & Faya for reading and rereading and making suggestions. If it sucks, I know who to blame! Just kidding. Note 3: To Ceremonial (sorry, I lost your email), Syren, KnighteWolfe and WingZero (my first) and everyone else at ff.net that's been reviewing, ONE MILLION THANKS!!!! You have been very encouraging and I am truly grateful. And I do apologize for how it's taken me to get this up.  
  
Warning: "bad" words (i.e. cursing) *** *** denotes a change in action or POV  
Journal Entry 12.26.AC216  
  
I sent it today. My ultimatum.  
  
Meet me at Liberty Square Park, by the Tomb of the Innocents, on January 1st at 2am. If we're going to continue this relationship, I must be allowed to see you. I promise it will only be me. Michael has agreed to accompany me to the park and see me home, but he will leave the area as soon as you approach. If you can't bring yourself to show up then please don't email me again. I cannot bear to live with the knowledge that you are out there close by, that I can email you and talk to you but that I cannot see you. It's killing me. I need more than just a ghost in a machine, I need my real, live, father to hold on to, it's not fair to me otherwise. I can't continue like this, father, I must see you!  
  
That was it, no other guilt ridden appeals and no middle ground. Now I have to wait to see what happens. I can only hope and pray that it will have a positive result, because if it doesn't I think my heart will shatter into tiny little pieces and it will be a long time before I can put it all back together again.  
  
*** *** ### 01.11.217, Tuesday afternoon, Peacecraft Estate ###  
  
She's strong, I'll give her that much. Apparently much stronger than me. She's made me do something I never thought would happen again.  
  
I surrendered.  
  
Surrendered to her logic, surrendered to her wants, surrendered to her demands, surrendered. to her blackmail. But most of all, once again, I surrendered to my heart.  
  
What was it my old friend used to say? I may run and hide, but I'll never tell a lie. Well if I were him, I'd have to admit that I'd be lying if I said I didn't want it, too. In all honesty, I've wanted this since the day I left, since the day I decided I'd do more harm by staying than I would by leaving.  
  
I just didn't think I could do it.  
  
I'm standing here by the lake, waiting for my judgment. Waiting for her to bring two of the people who could make or break this tentative arrangement. Everything depends on how they react. She assures me this will be a success. I have my doubts.  
  
Can she pull it off? Can I?  
  
Three weeks ago she made a demand. Laid down the law and told me how it was going to be. I either met with her in person or I could take a hike. Granted, she didn't use quite those words, but she might as well have told me I could go to hell. Because if I didn't do what she wanted, that's where I would've been. In hell.  
  
I swear to all the gods that my friends believe in, I've never been so scared in my life. Me! A thirty-six year old man who had done more dangerous and potentially deadly things in the first 10 years of his life than most normal people would be capable of in three full lifetimes. I'd put together and put to use explosives capable of taking a sizable chunk out of any colony. Taken down the enemy of the moment with a gun, rifle, bazooka, grenade or blade - whatever I'd had at my disposal. The only thing I hadn't done at that point in time was pilot a mobile suit. And I did enough of that in the six years that followed my first ten, that it would have taken another three people a few more lifetimes.  
  
I had always been the invincible one; the strongest physically, the most single-minded, the most ruthless and the most cunning. A real badass, that's what I was. And for what? To grow up and reach the grand old age of 21, at which point I ran and hid like the little kid I'd never been. Out of fear. And now after years of loneliness and solitude, of being a wraith in the shadows of their lives, to once again be afraid. of what my daughter expected of me. So now I'm standing here, about ready to piss in my pants at the thought that my once two best friends might not stand the sight of me. If it weren't so sad, I think it'd be funny.  
  
Thank their gods that Relena's not here; I don't think I could stand to face her first.  
  
They should be here soon, I've been out here for almost an hour. She'd said they would be here by now. I don't remember whether she had said she would tell them before bringing them out here or let them find out on their own, when they saw me. I don't know which is worse, the waiting or the thought of actually having to face them. I've been walking around in circles, sweating despite the chilled air, physically trying to calm myself down by shaking loose the muscles that keep bunching up in my arms and legs. I've rolled my shoulders, shaken my hands, stretched, twisted, stood and sat in every place and position possible. I even hid behind the damn oak tree at one point. This is really, really ridiculous.  
  
Oh shit, it's him, Duo. I hear his voice and I'm hiding behind the stupid tree again. I could just take a quick look around it before revealing myself. I should be able to gage their mood from that. I don't hear Trowa but that's not unusual, he hardly ever gets a word in edgewise while Duo's around. Hell, nobody does. There's Helena's voice, telling him to just be patient, that he'll find out soon enough. Funny, she doesn't sound at all nervous. Too bad I can't say the same for myself. All I have to do is stand, stand and walk away from the tree, then it'll all be over. One way or another.  
  
They're only about halfway down the lawn. Don't know if I'm ready for this. Kami, Allah, Nataku, Jesus; whoever's up there, help me out please. Here's goes nothing and everything.  
  
*** ***  
  
A figure stepped away from the trunk of the big oak, half hidden in the shade of the tree.  
  
/God it couldn't be/ Trowa's stride faltered, then he came to an abrupt stop. /No, not possible, just not possible./ He stood rooted to the ground, staring straight ahead. His heart was racing, but his mind just couldn't catch up.  
  
His companions were momentarily unaware that he'd stopped moving and they turned to look at him as their conversation trailed off. Helena watched him carefully, looking for a sign, any indication of what might happen next. She was so busy watching for Trowa's reaction that she almost missed what happened next.  
  
Duo, in typical fashion, was in the process of making a joke about Trowa seeing a ghost when he turned to follow his friend's line of sight. He froze momentarily and blinked a few times, as if unsure of what he was seeing. He squinted briefly, leaning his head forward to peer more carefully at the figure still standing with one hand on the trunk of the huge oak. The figure stepped away from the tree and Duo took a tentative step forward. His ever animated body had gone almost completely still. He was moving forward slowly, mumbling something so quietly that, despite the fact that he'd only moved a few feet away, Helena couldn't hear him.  
  
Her father finally cleared the shade of the huge old oak and stood, stock still, facing them. He made no move to advance or say a word, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his face lifted just enough to see through the wild strands of hair in his face. Duo, however, broke into a full on run. He was a blur of blue and red, a long tail of brown flying behind him. He left the ground in a flying leap, at such a distance from his target that what followed seemed impossible. He tackled Heero to the ground.  
  
As the now reanimated Trowa and Helena approached the two who were still on the ground they could hear Duo's voice loud and clear, he was in full tirade mode. He sat straddling Heero's stomach and appeared to be alternately smacking his friend, prodding at him and pointing an indignant finger in his face. Heero for his part was attempting to protect himself from the abuse behind a raised arm.  
  
"You asshole! You god-damned son of a bitch! Don't you ever do that again. I can't believe it's you! You bastard! It is really you? You're an asshole you know that. Listen to me you son of a bitch, if you ever pull a disappearing act like that again, I'll freakin' hunt you down and kill you." He fisted the front of Heero's shirt and jerked it around a bit. "Do you know what you put us through, you jerk! You're not getting away with that shit again, brother. I'll kill you, do you hear me? Omae o korosu[1] you bastard, te mato[2], je te. te. damnit Trowa, what's the word for kill in French?"  
  
"Tuer" three voices answered and followed it with a bout of laughter.  
  
"This is NOT funny!" Duo glared at the two people standing above him for only a moment before realizing the body beneath him was shaking with mirth too. He turned his attention back to Heero and smacked him on the arm once more. "And you! You motherless son of a bitch, I swear, I don't care what it takes, you ever leave us again and I'll find you and kill you. Dead - do you understand me, jerk. You'll be dead cause I'll damn well kill you. I will never forgive you. Don't laugh at me, you asshole. I'm pissed as hell right now and Shinigami ain't got nothing on me when I'm pissed." Duo firmly sat back then, crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head to the side, raising his chin in righteous indignation. It was a signal that the tirade was over. Perhaps.  
  
When Heero had sufficiently recovered from the laughter and the beatings, he put a hand up over his eyes to shade them from the sun and looked over at Trowa who had remained in relative silence the whole time. Heero had a pretty good idea where he stood with Duo; who was mad but seemed to have - wholeheartedly - accepted his return. Now only Trowa's acceptance remained for him to survive this trial.  
  
His tall friend regarded him without any reaction for a good long time and Heero began to worry that Trowa might not be as forgiving as their braided friend had been. Just when Heero was becoming uncomfortable with the scrutiny, the other man uttered a single word that made all the remaining tension ease away. "Ditto." He said and then smirked at the prone figure of his long lost friend.  
  
Giving his daughter and his old friend a lopsided grin, Heero made to sit up but was prevented by the man still sitting on his stomach. "Uh Duo?"  
  
The braided man just raised his chin a little higher and muttered "I'm not talking to you." then as an afterthought ".bastard."  
  
"Well, my questionable parentage" he raised an eyebrow "and your homicidal tendencies aside, I'd like to get up now and greet Trowa properly." His other eyebrow joined the first, "If that's OK with you." He waited a moment more and when no reaction was forthcoming he bucked his prone form slightly, unsettling the other enough to allow him to sit up. Duo was now firmly planted on his thighs, arms still crossed, head still turned to the side.  
  
Another minute passed before it occurred to Heero that Duo wanted something, the question now, was 'what?' "Are you going to tell me, or are we going to stay like this until I figure out what it'll take to make you move?" Duo continued to look everywhere but at his friend.  
  
Father, daughter and green-eyed friend looked at each other puzzling over the situation they were in. At last the youngest of them spoke. "Uncle Duo, don't you think you should let my dad get up now."  
  
"I think he owes me something, before I truly acknowledge his presence."  
  
That earned a bark of laughter from Trowa. "Oh so tackling him to the ground, cursing up a storm and smacking him around is not acknowledging his presence?" All it got him was a 'hmph' from Duo. They waited. "Alright Duo, what does he owe you?"  
  
"I would think." the violet-eyed man began, giving Trowa and Helena a meaningful look, "it would be painfully obvious. He owes me - and you guys - an apology for being an ass. You can't let people go around disappearing on you without an explanation and then just popping up out of nowhere years later like nothing happened without at LEAST an apology. We'll just skip over the whole details thing for now. But an apology, I cannot go without." He hmphed again and, impossible as it seemed, raised his chin another notch.  
  
"Duo!" Helena couldn't believe her ears. "Would you please just get up! You haven't even given him a chance to breath. I'm sure dad'll tell you whatever you want to know! Jeez, can we please act like adults here?" Realizing that she'd just committed him to something he'd not yet agreed to, she eyed her father warily. He just smiled and nodded tightly in return.  
  
"I'm waiting! And I'm quite comfortable at the moment." He bounced lightly on Heero's legs. "Matter of fact, I could stay here all day." He uncrossed his arms and clasped his hands behind his head, turning from side to side, looking for all the world like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  
  
Heero took a deep breath and shook his head minutely. If an apology was all it would take he was more than willing to comply. "Duo." He waited for an acknowledgement but continued to be ignored. "I'm sorry, baka."  
  
That got him a reaction.  
  
Duo's head shot around so quickly his braid nearly flew in his face. "Baka! Baka? Oh, I'm a baka? Let me define for you what a baka is, my old friend." He punctuated each of the last three words with a solid poke in the chest "A baka is a jerk who runs off and leaves behind everyone who cares about him without telling them why." He pushed at Heero's shoulder roughly and got in his face a bit more. "A baka is a twit who runs around tailing those same people for the next umpteen years but doesn't have the guts to just walk up and talk to them. A baka is the guy who pops outta nowhere after all that time and just expects everybody to act like they saw him last Saturday. So who's the baka here and what exactly are you supposedly sorry for, huh?" He poked Heero square in the chest one last time.  
  
He was angry. Really and truly angry, but more than anything else he was hurt. And if he was completely honest with himself, more than just a little scared that this was another one of those strange dreams. He hadn't had one of those in a long time. The truth was he feared that at any minute the alarm clock would go off or the boys would make a kamikaze dive onto his bed and send him flying into consciousness. "Duo." Oh here it came, someone was calling his name. "Duo." there was a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"Duo, I'm sorry, for leaving, for staying away, most recently for asking for favors when I really had no right to; but most of all for not trusting you, any of you." he looked up at Trowa then, to make sure the man understood that the apology was intended for both of them, "to help me make it through." He looked back at Duo, hopeful.  
  
Duo hesitated only a moment, then stood fluidly "Well." he drawled and extended his hand down towards his friend, a slight curve etching the corner of his mouth, "in that case, apology accepted." He nodded minutely when Heero took his hand and helped the other man to his feet, then without missing a beat, pulled him into a hug and clapped him firmly on the back. "God almighty, it's good to see you!" He pulled back and smiled a full- blown grin, still clapping his friend on the shoulder.  
  
Trowa, who had waited just about as long as he was going to interrupted, "Alright, that's enough. What do you think, you're the only one that missed him?" He shouldered Duo out of the way and embraced Heero tightly. When they broke apart, they both turned to see Duo pulling Helena by the shirt sleeve and throwing an arm around her.  
  
"You are in so much trouble right now, little baka. I expect a full report on just how long you've known and exactly what you thought you were doing by not telling me! I KNOW he didn't just waltz in here this morning."  
  
Trowa decided he needed to get a little teasing in too. "Considering that she called to get us here almost a week ago, I'd say she's known for quite a while. You have a lot of explaining to do young lady." He gave her a stern look to which she responded by lowering her head and shuffling her feet.  
  
"I bet that boyfriend of hers knew too, eh Tro. I'm sure MICHAEL knew exactly what was going on. But does she tell old Uncle Duo? Oh no~o~o~o, not Uncle Duo! He only helped change her diapers and clean her up when she made a mess of herself. Taught her how to braid those lovely locks, carried her around on his back like the little monkey she was." He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head feigning disappointment.  
  
"Well, I." Helena stuttered, not sure what she should say. How could she defend her actions of the last few months.  
  
"I asked her not to." Heero interrupted. "It's my fault you guys didn't know. We've been emailing each other for a few months now, but I honestly didn't think it would come to this." He smiled and turned a knowing glance at his daughter. "She was very. persuasive in her arguments for making this happen. You could say I, uh. got an offer I couldn't refuse." /There, that would do for now./  
  
Duo and Trowa exchanged a glance, wondering what-all their friend's remark meant. All in good time though; there was so much to ask, so much they wanted know, so much they needed to say. But most of all, there was so much hope that their friend would be around for many years to come.  
  
The silence stretched as three old friends eyed each other, unsure of what should happen next. It was again the youngest of the four that broke the silence. "Why don't I go in and fix us some coffee and a light snack, you guys can, uh, maybe go for a walk and talk a little. I'll call you when it's ready?"  
  
Green and violet eyes turned to regard their niece and smiled their acceptance of her offer. Blue eyes matching her own turned to her with nervousness, unsure. She reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it minutely, then gave her father a brief hug, whispering, 'you'll be fine' as she released him.  
  
He answered by kissing her forehead and running his hand down her shoulder length hair. "We'll be back in a little while," he said to her then turned to his friends, motioning towards the tree he'd been at just moments before and the shore of the lake beyond it.  
  
She watched as the three men walked away, joy growing exponentially in her heart.  
  
*** ***  
  
MISSION CASE FILE  
  
FOLIO STATUS (OPEN/CLSD): OPEN FOLIO OWNER: UNE FOLIO STATUS LAST UPDATED: 02/17/202 NEXT REVIEW DATE: 02/17/217 REVIEW SCHEDULE: ANNUAL  
  
FOLIO#: JLV83259-L1.2573389 CASE#: L1.2573389 RELATED FOLIO #: JLV83259-L2.5943395, JLV83259-L2.5943394,  
  
JLV83259-L1.2573302, JLV83259-EA.8779421  
  
OPERATIONS MODE: COVERT OPERATIVES REQUIRED: 1 ASSIGNED AGENT: ICE OBJECTIVES (SPECIFY): Access TARGET headquarters. Extract data from TARGET server. Neutralize immediate TARGET threats. Neutralize TARGET production equipment. Neutralize TARGET base. COMPLETION STATUS: PENDING MISSION GO: SUCCESSFUL MISSION STATUS: SUCCESSFUL MISSION OBJECTIVE: SUCCESSFUL MISSION REPORT: RECEIVED MISSION DEBRIEF: PENDING AGENT1 STATUS: UNKNOWN AGENT2 STATUS: N/A MISSION RESULTS: OBJECTIVES ATTAINMENT %: 100 EVIDENCE LOCKER#: N/A CASUALTIES/TARGET: 24 ADULT/M 4 ADULT/F 0 MINOR/M 0 MINOR/F IDENTITIES: SEE FOLIO JLV83259-L1.2573389-CT CASUALTIES/VICTIM: 3 ADULT/M 2 ADULT/F 1 MINOR/M 0 MINOR/F IDENTITIES: SEE FOLIO JLV83259-L1.2573389-CV SPECIFY: 1. Based on Mission Report (JLV83259-L1.2573389-MR) data, presence of 1- TARGET and all (6) VICTIM casualties are presumed to have been unknown to agent. Remains were found in 2nd sub-basement. Clarification pending DEBRIEF. Post mortem analysis has confirmed identities of 3 ADULT/M VICTIM, 1 ADULT/F VICTIM casualties as "business associates" of TARGETS. Post mortem analysis has confirmed identities of 1 ADULT/F VICTIM, 1 MINOR/M VICTIM as immediate family of 1 ADULT/M VICTIM 6 VICTIM casualties were determined to be deceased prior to explosion. 27 TARGET casualties were determined to be deceased prior to explosion. 1 TARGET casualty was determined to be alive prior to explosion. CASE OWNER NOTES: Based on the information ascertained from the mission report, the mission was completed successfully. In the absence of a debriefing, due to the Agent disappearing shortly after mission completion, there are points that still need to be clarified. It appears that the Agent successfully gained access to the Target base of operations. He successfully accessed the Target server and downloaded proof of the suspected activities of Target crime ring, which has ties to other known crime rings. Previously documented activities included gun- running, drug trafficking and extortion in various sectors of L1, L2 and Earth. Extracted server data revealed Target was financing the development and production of multiple prohibited technologies: laser weaponry, portable thermo-nuclear devices and volatile chemical compounds (purpose suspected, but unconfirmed). The Agent encountered no resistance throughout the first phase of infiltration and data gathering. Agent was proceeding to second phase when discovered and detained. Agent identity was ascertained by Target. In the course of attempting to escape, Agent neutralized 27 Targets, 23 adult males and 4 adult females. Agent carried out the second phase of the mission, unaware of additional Target and Victim presence in second sub-basement; this is believed to account for the difference in casualty count between Agent report and post mission data. Mission report was received via secured electronic means three days after mission completion. No subsequent contact with Agent. Agent appears to have been unharmed in the completion of this mission. Agent whereabouts are as yet unknown. Reasons for disappearance are as yet unknown. Special Note on Victim Casualties: All victim casualties have been identified through post mortem examination, pertinent data can be found in Folio JLV83259-L1.2573389- CV. Details confirmed with 92% accuracy, condition of mission site precluded higher accuracy. 2 adult males and 1 adult female, known criminal elements, had a history of business with Target in areas under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement. All three were believed to have been tortured and neutralized prior to mission completion, 1 of above males is believed to have been deceased a minimum of 3 days prior to mission completion. Copies of police records pertaining to all 3 are included in Folio JLV83259-L1.2573389-CV. 3rd adult male casualty, 2nd adult female casualty and single minor male casualty have been identified as a family unit. Adult male was determined to be a local mechanic, known to have been contracted to work on production design, possibly on prohibited technologies, it is believed that he was neutralized after the other members of his family unit, all are believed to have been neutralized prior to mission completion. Special Note on 2nd Sub-basement: Sub-basement was not on any known schematics of Target base at the time the mission commenced. It is believed, based on the analyzed remains of the area and information gathered post mission completion, that the sub-basement was secured via electronic means, with limited and concealed access. It is reasonable to assume the Agent would have had no visual indication of its existence. (Pending debrief)  
  
Mission case file will remain open until such time that a debriefing is possible. All inquiries regarding this and related files should be directed to Folio Owner on record.  
  
[3] *** ***  
  
Journal Entry 01.14.AC217  
  
They've been getting together for the past three days and everything seems to be going fine. That first afternoon here they talked for hours by the lake. I never did get around to calling them in when the coffee was ready, they seemed so immersed in their conversations. It took both Duo and Trowa almost two solid days to convince my dad that he needed to call Wufei and Quatre right away and let them know he was back. Yesterday they spent the day at dad's apartment but came by the house for dinner. I don't know what they've been discussing these last three days, but I know that it will take quite a while to work everything out between them. At first I was jealous, as if he'd been taken away from me again but I realized that I had been the same way those first few days with him. I had wanted nothing but to spend time with him. And we did. We spent the first four days of the new year practically holed up in this place, just talking things over. I still haven't seen the apartment he goes home to every night. I'm hoping I will soon and that it'll be because I'm helping to pack up his things so he can return to where he belongs. Here. With mom. With me.  
  
Today he met with Lady in the morning so he could be debriefed on his last mission. Seems kind of strange to me to be doing that so many years later, but what would I know about that kind of thing. The only thing I do know is that Wufei and Quatre are expected to arrive here tomorrow morning, Quatre needed time to rearrange his schedule and hop a flight here, and Wufei is returning from an out of town meeting tonight. All of them will be staying through the end of Sunday.  
  
Lu and Mill already know he's here, it would've been kind of hard to hide it from them since they live on the estate. My announcement was met less than enthusiastically on Uncle Mill's part, but all he said was that he would reserve judgment until mom got back and he'd be there for us should we need him. I'm not sure he knows how to react. He and dad were never the best of friends and while he had never spoken badly about him to me, I don't think he trusts dad. Lu has reassured me that he'll come around, that it's just his concern for his sister that makes him reticent to be accepting. To him it would be a betrayal to accept Heero's return without first knowing his sister's heart.  
  
The only one left to find out is mom. I'm almost glad that she wasn't around when all of this was happening. I don't think I could have managed this as well as I have and I don't think dad could've handled meeting with her first. I don't know what that's going to be like. It's not like I'm afraid mom will refuse to see him or turn him away, but there must be so much hurt built up between them that it's bound to be a difficult reunion. Oh well, only time will tell and that should be in about three days. We're expecting her back early in the afternoon on Monday.  
  
All in all I think things are working out great.  
  
I was so afraid when I sent him that last email that the results would be disastrous. I was sure that I'd pushed too far, especially as the days grew in number from when I'd sent my ultimatum. Each day that passed with no response left me a little more frightened. I kept wondering if he had read it and already decided to abandon me for good. It's not like I told him he needed to reply, I just told him to show up; but in those moments of insecurity I was hoping that he'd reply. It was a hard hope to hold onto.  
  
It came in the morning hours of New Year's Eve. I stared at that one line in my inbox, afraid of its contents. I was afraid to open it only to find that my greatest desire would be denied, that my father had refused, and that I would never see or hear from him again. I cursed myself for stupid ten times - for having made the ultimatum and then for being afraid of its outcome. I'd move my cursor over it to open it and then move it away again out of fear. There was only one way to find out what his decision had been. After much deliberation I opened it.  
  
What I found was not what I had expected - good or bad. What I found was a confession of sorts; an appeal for understanding and forgiveness, an explanation of what had kept him away and a ball placed firmly in my court. What I found broke my heart as it was true remorse and self loathing that oozed from the page.  
  
Blind rage; mechanical, uncontrolled, automatic and in his eyes unwarranted. That is what had made him leave. What in his opinion made him a monster, in my opinion made him a fallible human being.  
  
Without divulging too many details, he did explain that he'd been discovered, identified and threatened during the course of his mission. He was not threatened with his own life or safety, but with mother's and mine. As options were delineated to him, he entered a state of total blind rage and eventually mowed down everyone in his path. It had been within mission parameters that he might need to kill to escape, but according to him what he did was unacceptable if for no other reason than because he'd done it without conscious thought.  
  
He said he'd snapped, entered a zone, where he reverted to his "old" ways, to the days of the war where the only thing that mattered was accomplishing the one task at hand, getting out and leaving no witnesses. Within the span of an hour, he'd killed 27 people then destroyed the building and all the computers and hardware within. That too, apparently, was part of his mission, though it was supposed to have been done after the building had been vacated.  
  
He regretted becoming the judge, jury and executioner of those people, but pointed out that they had not been 'nice people' and would likely have ended up that way sooner or later. They were known criminals, part of an organized crime ring. He confessed that it was not so much the deaths, but the uncontrollable reaction that had frightened him the most. He believed himself to be a direct threat to mom and me. He was afraid that his actions, if they were found out, would make others go after him and possibly put us in harm's way. Most of all, his inability to possibly control his rage in the future made him fear for our safety. For those reasons he fled.  
  
He ended his email by saying that I deserved to know the truth, that I deserved the right to reconsider my request. He would fully understand if I chose not to meet him now, with the knowledge of what he had done. He said he wouldn't blame me if I could not bring myself to welcome him into my life, so he was leaving it in my hands to decide. 'If you can find it in yourself to forgive me, then I will see you there at 2am; if you do not show up, I will never bother you again.'  
  
Despite it being the early afternoon I tried to reply to tell him that what he'd done did not change how I felt. I knew he had killed before, they all had during the wars and this had been his job after all. If I could love my uncles, real and otherwise, despite their actions; why couldn't I still love him? It was not for me to judge his actions. It didn't change my need for him.  
  
My message was returned, undeliverable. The email account had been deactivated. This was his ultimatum. He would wait for me at 2am, if I showed up it would be his answer. Without knowing it, he had just given me mine - he would be there. I had rolled the dice and I'd won!  
  
I don't know how I made it through the rest of that day without going crazy. Michael and I left the house early that night because I couldn't wait to be 'on my way' and was mortally afraid that something would happen to delay us. I didn't want to take a chance that I'd miss him and that he'd go away thinking I didn't want him around anymore.  
  
Michael and I rang in the new year, danced and watched the fireworks from the other end of the park, then leisurely made our way to the Tomb of the Innocents. The area surrounding the Tomb saw very little traffic on New Year's Eve unlike the week before when well-wishers and survivors left flowers, cards and candles to mark the anniversary of the end of the conflicts all those years ago. It was while waiting for him to appear that I thought of the irony of meeting there. It was the death of not-so- innocents that had driven my father from me.  
  
We had been snuggling on a bench beside the memorial when we saw someone approach just before two o'clock. We stood and I didn't think I could hold my excitement, I knew instantly it was him. He stopped a few meters away and we regarded each other in silence. Michael bent to my ear and said 'go, I'll be waiting for you at the fountain' then he left us alone. It was another minute or two before he moved again and came to stand before me. He reached out as if to touch me and then hesitated, it was all the invitation I needed. I lunged at him and the fear and anxiety that had been churning inside me turned to overwhelming joy as tears streamed unchecked down my face and I embraced him for the first time. After a few minutes of quiet contact he pulled back and led me to the bench where I'd just been sitting. And then we talked.  
  
I made him promise not to disappear again. He promised to try to make it up to me. We talked about my journal entries and what he thought about them, what he had learned about how his friends saw him. He expressed doubt at their assessments, but accepted them for what they were, opinions and perspectives that he'd never had the opportunity to learn about. He also expressed fear and concern over how the others would react to seeing him. He was afraid that they could not, or would not, trust him again; that they would reject him. I tried to reassure him that it wouldn't happen. He hadn't seen their renewed hope at finding him or their pain at not succeeding. I made him agree to meet with his friends, his family, in the days to come. Then I made him promise again that he would never disappear on me.  
  
We talked until it was very nearly sunrise, all the while his arm was around me, holding my hand, stroking my hair. Finally, we decided to meet again later in the day, and spend some more time alone. He walked me to where Michael was waiting for me and thanked him for being there to support me. We had many more plans to make and they have almost all come to pass.  
  
Now, there is only one more hurdle to jump and she won't be home soon enough.  
  
*** ***  
  
### 01.14.217, Friday afternoon, Heero's Apartment ###  
  
Two men entered the small apartment and shrugged off their coats. The shorter of the two threw his lazily on the arm of the couch continuing on his way to the kitchen. "Coffee? Or tea?" he called back.  
  
"Uh, coffee." The taller answered, while closing the door behind him and tossing his coat on top of his friend's. The. unusual. pattern of the sofa's upholstery catching his eye once again. He shook his head ruefully and made his way to the small kitchen. His friend was already setting the fresh grounds to brew. The tall one was taking a look around the kitchen again when his attention was drawn by a grunt. He looked over and had to wonder at the sight. "What are you doing, Heero?"  
  
"Huh? Oh," he straightened from his position half curled around the fridge door. "trying to put this damned thing back in place. It slips off the hinge at the bottom sometimes." He waved a dismissive hand at the article in question. "Piece of shit." he mumbled as he resumed his attempt to get the thing back in order.  
  
Trowa took a seat at the small table, the one farthest from the offending appliance, and studied his surroundings. He, Heero and Duo has spent the better portion of the last three days here, but it had never struck him just how. shabby this place was. It was just so unlike Heero to live in this. this.  
  
"It's a dump." Was the monotone answer to his mind's meanderings. Heero was leaning back against the counter, arms crossed, scowling at. the room in general it seemed.  
  
At a loss for anything more pleasant, the green-eyed man had to agree. "Yeah, it's pretty nasty." Another quick glance around prompted him to ask. "Why are you living here, exactly? It's not like you can't afford a better place." He continued to look around, noticing for the first time the hairline fissures that ran through a considerable amount of the plaster, the truly horrific material covering the couch /tacky, just tacky/, the exposed light fixtures on the ceiling.  
  
Heero grunted, taking the seat across the table from him. "It was all I could find on such short notice. I usually plan my moves with a lot more time, I've only been here three months. You don't know how many times I've thought about just moving into a hotel. Screw the deposit." He shook his head; whether it was out of disgust at his current abode or disbelief at his peculiar situation, was unclear.  
  
"Why'd you have to move on short notice?" It was obviously going to take a lot longer than three days to find out all of what his friend had been doing for the last several years.  
  
"They sold the building I was living in, some developer wants to tear it down and build something a little more upscale." He shrugged. "Guess they figured they could get a lot more people to buy in to a new high rise than some old converted warehouse. I only had two weeks notice before I had to get out. I was in the middle of a job, I couldn't really take the time out to go looking for anything."  
  
Turning to take another sweeping gaze at the place Trowa couldn't help but ask, "So how'd you find this place?"  
  
"The want-ads."  
  
Heero got up and headed for the coffee pot, pulling two mugs from an overhead cupboard, the hinges on that looked a little unstable, too. Trowa was about to ask if he'd checked for references when a resounding crashing and crunching noise made him shoot out of his seat. His friend had already run from the kitchen to the solitary bedroom in the apartment.  
  
"Damnit!" bang, crunch, swoosh "Son of a bitch, not again!"  
  
He popped his head quickly in and out of the doorway to the bedroom, afraid at what might lie within. Also slightly afraid that he was taking his own life into his hands; an angry Heero was not something to take lightly. "Heero, you OK in there?"  
  
bang "Piece of shit" crunch "aaaaaaaargh!" crunch "shit!" bang "IT BROKE! THE DAMNED THING BROKE!"  
  
Deciding he would be in no serious danger since it sounded like his friend was occupied, he stepped into the room and struggled hard to contain the laughter that instantly built inside him.  
  
Standing in the middle of a modest closet was Heero; draped in, standing on, and shoving aside what was apparently the better part of his wardrobe, hangers, computer disks and several upended storage boxes. He held out for the other man's inspection the now ruined bar that had formerly supported his clothing.[4]  
  
"IT BROKE! The damned thing broke! That's the fourth time this stupid shelf has fallen and this time it broke the damned bar. I swear, if I get my hands on the super I'll wring his neck. I called the idiot two weeks ago and told him that stupid thing was coming down again. He's already tried to fix it twice. Do you know what he told me?" Heero looked about ready to snap what was left of the one-inch-diameter wooden bar into splinters.  
  
Heero was looking a bit perturbed, so Trowa decided to play along, "he uh. he. couldn't make it?"  
  
"He'd put it on his list!" Heero continued grumbling as he made his way out of the melee, dropping the useless rod and dragging several articles of clothing with his feet.  
  
His tall friend regarded him for a moment and decided that instead of giving in to the little remarks struggling to escape him, he'd opt for being helpful. "You should probably just take everything and organize it out here, so he has space to work when he does get here."  
  
The Japanese man looked up from the task of untangling a shirt-sleeve from his ankle. "What?"  
  
"I said we should just empty out the closet." Trowa motioned in its direction and moved to begin doing just that. "If you clear out the space he might fix it right this time." He picked up some of the displaced clothing and made his way to dump them on the bed. Heero followed his actions without any further commentary; well, except for the occasional expletive.  
  
When they had successfully shoved or carried everything from the closet they set about folding the clothes into neat little stacks and returning the spilled contents to their now-empty boxes. As the work proceeded Trowa came across something that nearly bowled him over. He stood slowly from his crouched position and lifted a pair of shiny, black, paten-leather shoes. "These shoes."  
  
"Huh?" Heero looked over from where he was sorting through some loose papers; thinking his friend was looking for their destination he sought out the appropriate box. Motioning with his chin to a box by the door he replied "Grey box over there, the one with the black pants and the white shirts in it. The lid's underneath, go ahead and close it, nothing else goes in there." He'd already returned his gaze to the papers in front of him by the time the other reached the box.  
  
Just as Trowa had suspected upon finding the shoes, the box had a neat stack of familiar clothes, comprising of 3 pairs of black uniform pants and 5 neatly folded white shirts. Non descript, total ordinary, very commonly used, the clothes from. "the vid disc" his whispered and turned to face his friend who was oblivious to what he'd uncovered.  
  
Just as he was about to ask Heero about the contents of the box, the front door opened and in walked Duo. "Lucy, I'm ho~ome!" he shouted making his way to the room. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight that greeted him. Even to the Master of Disaster, as Hilde had affectionately dubbed him, it looked like a hurricane had hit. "Whatever happened here, it wasn't me. I haven't been here since last night and it was neat and tidy when I left. I wasn't even in the neighborhood." He held up his hands in a sign of surrender and took a tentative step back, then nodded acknowledgements at the two men staring at him.  
  
"Baka" Heero chided "have you got a guilty conscience or what?" He chuckled and turned back to sort his papers.  
  
"You know some people say 'offense is the best defense', well sometimes DEFENSE is the best defense. I roomed with you before, remember, I don't want any misunderstandings." He looked over at Trowa who was still standing by the grey box with the shoes in his hands.  
  
He nodded at the article in hand. "Not quite your style, bud, but if you really like 'em I'm sure he'll lend 'em to ya'" he grinned and then, for the first time, really SAW what his friend was holding. At the urging of a pointed finger, he looked in the box and understood why his tall friend was pursing his lips like that.  
  
They shared a look and Duo charged ahead with a new topic of conversation, "Uh Heero, why do you have these?"  
  
The Japanese man had just put the last of the documents into a neat little pile and stood while turning to address them. "What? Oh those, just some uniforms I bought to." He stopped and looked at the - sarcastically - expectant gazes directed at him. He quirked a hesitant, and quite unnatural, fake smile in response.  
  
"To, to, to what?" Duo prompted, shaking his chin a little in a questioning motion.  
  
"For work." Heero responded dryly and turned to find something else to occupy himself with.  
  
"WORK?" the other two chorused almost immediately.  
  
Heero grimaced at the reaction but wasn't ready to face the music yet.  
  
Trowa continued unfazed. "Work, huh? I thought you told us you were doing contract work for a company that ran network security assessments for their clients. What could you possibly need uniforms for? To sit at your computer?"  
  
"In your own home?" Duo chimed in. They shared another knowing look then both turned gazes at their friend.  
  
Heero grimaced again, couldn't hurt to try: "You don't really wanna know." He shook his head briefly and attempted to get back to the task at hand, whatever that had been.  
  
Four eyebrows shot up into two unmistakable sets of bangs, they looked at each other again in disbelief then turned back to their friend.  
  
"Really." Trowa stated, the sarcasm so thick you could cut it with a knife.  
  
"Gee, I don't know," Duo began and tapped an index finger to his chin, "I think I do wanna know. Cause if it's what I think it is, all I can think to say is I promise not to hit you" then after a brief pause, "too hard!"  
  
Heero huffed a breath, closed his eyes and rolled his head a full two times before dropping to sit on the bed with a contrite look. "I bought them a little over two years ago, I was working on a job for a company that was nearby and figured I could do the onsite work myself." He shot a look at Trowa. "You know how easy it is to get access into places you shouldn't be with just a uniform."  
  
The green-eyed man just stared back for a moment then nodded his concession, "True enough, go on."  
  
"Well, I bought it for that." He shrugged, hoping they'd just drop it. He felt bad enough about what he'd done, he didn't really want to air it all out.  
  
Apparently Duo did want to air it all out. "You bought 3 pants and 5 shirts for a one-time security breach? Oh pu-lease! Give me a freakin' break! You bought the damned things so you could conveniently leave them out, next to your computer, while you recorded your little messages, with them in the background. You were banking on one of us noticing it and trying to track you down!"  
  
He took a deep breath and rose from the bed, facing his friends squarely. "Yes. Alright, yes. What I said before was true, but, yes." He held up a hand to forestall interruptions. "I deliberately planted the clothes in the background of the recording so that one of you, NO so that you, Duo - cause I knew, I just knew, Relena would show it to you - so you would see the stupid uniforms and go hunting for some kind of connection. I'm sorry, but I needed time. I didn't know that Helena was leaving with you for L2 the next day. I figured if I gave you enough stuff to chase, I'd have time to get everything in order and be out of sight by the time you figured it out. I didn't realize she'd take so long to tell you. I'd already agreed to meet that kid the next morning and give him the box with the vid disc in it. I knew it wouldn't take that long to figure out the thing with the sign. And since I expected that you'd still be around I didn't want to take any chances. I'm sorry." He raised his arms from his sides, palms facing upward, a sign of supplication. "I really am sorry. I never would have sent you on a wild goose chase if I'd known I had enough time." He dropped his hands and shook his head.  
  
Trowa just continued staring at him. It was understandable, he guessed. Had he been the one in that situation, he likely would have done the same. He nodded his understanding at Heero and dropped the shoes in the box, placing the lid on top and ending that discussion. As far as he was concerned.  
  
Duo, however, was another matter. The other two men watched as his animated face worked through the problem. He seemed to be going through various internal considerations; a grimace, a raised eyebrow, a pursed lip, eyes narrowed then widened, eyebrows shot up again, a pout of sorts, one expression flowed into the next. Finally the face relaxed into a more natural countenance. He nodded succinctly, "Fine. But no more bullshit, alright Heero." He pointed a finger sharply at his friend. "I ask a question, I want a straight answer. I'm not saying that you have to tell me everything I wanna know, but the least you can do is be straight with me. Tell me what I want to know or tell me it's none of my business, but no more beating around the bush. We never lied to each other before, there's no reason to start now."  
  
Heero nodded contritely, "Fair enough". He hesitated, he'd already apologized, but it didn't seem to him to be enough. "I really am sorry, I. I don't understand why you still bother with me. You should just "  
  
"Don't go there again." Duo told him sharply and Trowa nodded his agreement. "We're friends. We promised a long time ago to be there for each other and I, for one, meant it. You have no idea the amount of stupid shit I'm willing to put up with from you. So just. just don't go there. Alright?" Heero nodded once. "Great, now let's clean up this mess, even I couldn't live like this."  
  
The three men continued to organize and situate the contents of Heero's closet. After a while they took a short break to fix themselves a round of coffee then attacked the mess again. Within a couple of hours the room had been returned to its near pristine state and the friends just lounged around; catching each other up some more on what had happened in the one man's absence and rebuilding the fragile bonds of a friendship long neglected.  
  
The lost boys would, eventually, find their Neverland again.  
The End (pending The Epilogue, of course)  
Notes:  
  
[1] I'll kill you in Japanese.  
  
[2] .and in Spanish  
  
[3] First off, I made this whole report up (obviously), including the format and information provided. I have no idea what would or would not be found in a report/file of this kind. While I've done plenty of filing and collating and organizing of data, I just wanted some points to get across. Like that the bad guys had 'prisoners' in the basement that had been killed off, prior to Heero's blowing the place up, by the one live target (affectionately referred to by me as the goon) - making the bad guys even badder, cause they'd captured and killed the wife and kid of one of their customers. OK, so most of that's just extra shit, but I wanted it as part of the story.  
  
Also, the 'testing' I referred to is assuming that post-mortem use of DNA, tissue typing and things of that nature will have progressed to a point where it would be possible to gather all the info I cited from the remains of the bodies. OK, so most of that's just extra shit, too. So sue me!  
  
So while we're on the subject of 'extra shit', here's some anal retentivity to go with it: A Folio# would be like a master case number. Hence the related Folio's all have the same first part (JLV83259-) then an individual case number for the second part. The individual case numbers actually have some meaning, the first part (L2-, L1-, EA-) refers geographically to where the case originated or is based (Colony L2, Colony L1, Earth); hence Heero's case/mission (L1.2573389) took place on L1. Does this all matter in the greater scheme of things. No. I just wanted to share.  
  
If you have any other questions regarding the bad guys or the mission, email me. I have it all plotted out in my head, I just don't think any more needs to be said about it here.  
  
[4] Faya, this one's for you! We been there, we done that! It's a terrible thing to have happen to you and a pain to have to clean up.  
  
Disclaimer: After all this time and effort, they still do not belong to me. 


	15. Epilogue

The Journal – Epilogue 

By BadMomma (badmomma64@aol.com)

Helena POV

Notes at the bottom.

Excerpts from the last journal entries of Helena Yuy, AC217 – 219 

_01.16.217 _

_…I overheard them talking on the veranda this morning, I didn't mean to eaves-drop, I was just passing by and heard the voices and wondered who was there.  They were sitting at the smaller patio table, both with their feet up on the railing, sipping at mugs of some hot liquid.  They weren't exactly whispering but the words were low and sounded secretive none the less.  In utter silence I listened, hoping to gleam some knowledge of what they'd been talking about for so many days.  _

_'How'd you do it, how did you make it work?' _

_'We just did, don't really know how, we just managed.  Listen, you'll be fine, don't worry so much about it. Just be honest, don't hide the truth and don't beat around the bush. She still loves you and you still love her, you'll figure it out somehow.' _

_'But we're so… different. We always have been.  He was right you know, Zechs said I'd never really understand and he was right.  I don't know, Duo, maybe we weren't meant to be together, how could we, we're nothing alike.' _

_'Don't beat yourself up about it, Hil and I managed, you'll manage too.' _

_'Hilde's different, she was a soldier, she understands that, understands you because of it.  Relena… she never had that, never lived our lives. With you it's not so hard, you know me, you know what I'm thinking, how I think, you understand where I'm coming from.  With her, I just don't think…' _

_'Heero, you're just nervous, that's all. Give her a chance, let her decide what she wants to do. Just talk to her, she's grown up a lot since you've been gone. She understands a lot more than you give her credit for.'_

_The conversation went on from there but I didn't stick around for the rest of it.  I hadn't realized how much his upcoming reunion with mom would affect him. He sounded so nervous, so unsure.  I knew mom still loved him, he just need to have it reinforced…_

_…I led her to the back of the house and told her there was a surprise waiting for her at the gazebo.  She found it odd that I wouldn't go with her but I insisted, so she went on alone.  The minute she hit the lawn, I ran to my bedroom window, from there I'd get just a glimpse of the opening in the hedge that surrounded the little structure.  Dad said he'd know when she was coming and I wanted to see if I could catch her reaction, gage her mood by the look on her face.  She was just a few meters short of the opening when he stepped into view, his look was solemn, contrite.  He uttered one word, her name I guessed.  I said her name out loud concentrating on the movement of my lips, definitely, he'd said her name.  She stopped short and appeared to be staring at him.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good look at her face, I couldn't tell if they were just staring at each other or she was talking.  Then he nodded once and stepped back, almost out of view, but I saw him motion towards the gazebo with his arm; she nodded and followed his lead.  At least they were going to talk…_

_06.21.AC217_

_…mom's farewell party was very nice.  I had honestly expected a much larger crowd, but dad explained that a quiet dinner with the office staff was all she would agree to.  Her secretary had rented a private room at this nice Italian place just outside the commerce park, apparently they catered to business affairs.  There were heartfelt words of gratitude and praise from the people she'd worked with for years.  A few of her peers tearfully shared stories of late nights and long hours, working toward the resolution of some small crisis or another.  Others read letters of praise and 'well wishes' from absent peers throughout the Diplomatic Corps.  At the end of it all mom thanked everyone for their years of hard work, for their dedication to their profession, for their love and support, and assured them that she felt secure in the knowledge that the fate of the universe lay in capable hands.  She then turned her gaze to dad and said she had a new mission in life, one that she'd waited too long to complete.  One that she would spend the balance of her years working on.  _

_There wasn't a dry eye in the house when she was done.  Dad and I included…_

_05.22.AC218_

_…We're almost done packing their things and their departure is still more than a week away.  I thought I would be more anxious about this, I thought I'd feel some jealousy or a sense loss.  But as the days pass since their announcement two months ago, I find that my happiness only grows over their decision to move into Trowa's house on the Iberian Peninsula.  This is what's right for them.  They need this change, to get away from this house and the pressures that continually intrude.  Since resigning her post almost a year ago, mom's former coworkers have often called to consult her on some issue or another.  She's been asked to attend several events, not because she is the only one capable of speaking at these things, but because it's widely know that she still resides here "on the Peacecraft Estate", she is still looked upon as a de facto leader, a symbol, a former Vice-Foreign Minister, a respected diplomat.  She is still THE Relena Peacecraft. _

_And that's another thing that will change. She won't be Relena Peacecraft for much longer, she'll be Relena Yuy.  They're getting married, here at the house, the day before they leave.  It's funny but I'd just kind of forgotten that part, them not being married.  Not that it matters to me; they're my parents, I love them, they love me and each other.  But they decided that they'd put it off long enough.  It'll be just the three of us, Mill, Lu and the kids.  They didn't want anyone to make a big deal of it, they're not even telling their friends until it's over and done with.  Mom says they've had enough ceremonies and fancy to-dos to last them a lifetime, she just needs her family and her privacy now…_

_02.12.AC219_

_…They are NOT very happy with me right now.  I called them last night to say I needed to move up the visit I had planned for this summer because it would conflict with something new on my schedule.  When I told dad EXACTLY why he almost had a cow!  He kept going on and on about how lots of people joined Preventers with the intention of taking a desk job but that sooner or later memories of the adrenaline-related excitement of agent training reared its ugly head and suddenly you were putting in for a field transfer.  I tried to convince him that I REALLY had no intention of working in the field, I am a linguist after all.  Sports, or any other kind of physical exertion, was NEVER my thing, but he wouldn't listen.  He kept repeating how dangerous it was and that everyone would expect it of me, what with my family being who they were (he must've meant him, Uncle Mill and Aunt Lu – cause they sure wouldn't expect it of me because of mom), and that I would begin to believe that I should be in the field, and blah, blah, blah… God I thought he'd never stop, when suddenly he says 'hold on'.  I heard him put the phone down and say to mom, 'talk to your daughter, convince her this is a bad idea, she gets her stubbornness from you – debate until you change her mind, I'm going to email Chang.'  _

_I couldn't believe him, he thought he could just email Wufei and that would change things. What did he think?  That I was 12 years old or something and he could send a note to the teacher to keep me from going on a field trip.  Jeez.  And then mom, all I could hear were her footsteps approaching and the tail end of her mumbling something that sounded very much like, '…missing for 15 years and I'm the stubborn one?'  Of course, as soon as she picked up the phone she proceeded to try to convince me that he was right.  _

_In the end nothing changed. I'm still joining the Preventers, and like every other incoming hopeful I have to take the required agent training – which includes classroom time, to learn procedures and regulations, and field training in the event of an emergency situation.  Then if I pass the tests, I'm going to sit behind a desk, or a computer, whatever the case may be. I'd spoken to a recruiter who'd been on campus for the Career Planning fair and was surprised to find out just how many desk jobs the Preventers have and how they were in serious need of various 'non-combative' positions.  It seems that more than 60% of their positions involve no field work at all and they pay surprisingly well.  I won't even be working at the base, the headquarters, I'll be in a building downtown…_

First Journal entry of Helena Yuy Faroq.

March 20, AC226

I have just recently read my previous journal entries, a journal that I stopped keeping in AC219.  Only seven years have passed but many things have happened since then.  I start my new journal entries by reviewing that which has transpired.  I will not go into all the details of all the minutia that has taken place.  Many important things that have happened need only be mentioned in passing, as they really do not need much explaining, like the fact that on September 19th, AC221 I married Michael Faroq, the only man I have ever loved aside from my father and my uncles.

In this first journal entry I will briefly describe some of the more important events that took place since the last entry I made on February 12th, AC219, immediately before joining the Preventers Agent Training Program. 

In the months that I spent in training I ran into many of my family's old friends.  While Wufei was no longer an instructor, he was still the director of the department so I saw him regularly and the Lady was a frequent enough visitor to the training facility.  While they both deny it, I believe dad put them up to keeping an eye on me.  Lady's frequent visits did allow me to get to know her better and I came to learn that many of the beliefs I'd held about my father's involvement in the Preventers were wrong.  Something that came as quite a shock to me.  

Ever since Duo had told me that dad had come to earth with the intention of getting on mom's security team, I had just assumed that's what had happened.  I was quite shocked to find out that it couldn't have been farther from the truth.  Apparently dad's interest in mom was the reason that Lady had denied him a position on her security team believing it could be a conflict.  Because he, like the other former pilots, had 'special skills', he'd been offered a high ranking, full time position in the Agent Training Program and a reserve position with Special Ops.  Dad had been one of the lead instructors for the field agent candidates.  Both he and Wufei were responsible for picking the cream of the crop from every graduating class and offering them the opportunity to try for Special Ops, which entailed an additional six months of intensive training.  

I learned from Lady that had he been on mom's security team, dad never would have been eligible for the missions, which occasionally took him away from home.  She admitted to me that after he'd disappeared at the end of his last fateful mission, she'd often second guessed her decision.

I also learned from Lady many details of the mission that would so affect our lives.  I learned that the body count had been higher than what he'd believed, and the additional casualties were not his fault.  They'd imprisoned and killed innocents, a wife and a son; they'd wiped out a whole family in one fell swoop. Dad was right to fear those people, I'm sure they would have followed through on their threats to him.  He very well may have saved the lives of many more people by eliminating them when he did.  They were more than mere criminals, more than just gun runners, more than just murderers; they were really and truly monsters.

Dad and Trowa just left yesterday, they've been here for almost a month. Ever since Trowa moved into the house in Iberia, two months after mom died, they've spent most of their time together.  We were all so worried at first, dad seemed to have lost the desire to live when he lost mom.  Nothing any of us said could shake him from his depression.  I really thought I would lose him again.  He refused to stay with me any longer than was necessary to handle mom's affairs.  The last thing he said to me before leaving was that he needed to be alone with his thoughts and come to grips with what had happened.  Of course it had been a shock to everyone and we were all reeling from the suddenness of her death.  No one can truly prepare for the death of a loved one, but when it is so unexpected and ultimately senseless, it is even worse for the survivors.  My mother, just days short of turning 42, was hit and killed by a drunk driver.

Duo went home with Hilde after the service, but he kept trying to reach out to dad.  After two weeks passed where dad refused to answer any form of communication, Duo followed him to Iberia to try to bring him around.  When his repeated efforts failed, we turned to Trowa.  

In the time he had been here to pay his respects Trowa had confided in me that he knew, personally, what dad was going through.  He too had lost someone he cared very deeply for in a similarly unexpected way.  Apparently it was not common knowledge but he'd found his one true love when I was around five years old.  They had quietly lived and worked together at the circus for about a year and had planned to marry; they kept putting it off, because they believed there was no need to rush.  One ordinary day, she made an ordinary trip to the market and was killed in an attempted robbery.  Another innocent bystander brought down by random violence. He firmly believed that he could help dad through this rough period.  

In the end it took what seemed like forever.  Trowa spent countless weeks trying to draw dad from his misery.  Some of it active, some of it passive.  He later told me that the nights were the worst of it.  Dad wouldn't sleep, he'd walk the house or walk the shoreline; a restless animal in an invisible cage.  His moods swung from silent retrospection to outrageous vocal anger; often berating Trowa for his continued presence or threatening to leave himself.  I'm must say, I'm glad he never followed up on that threat. Eventually the poisonous anger began to bleed out but he remained unresponsive.  Trowa told of countless days where dad would sit by a window or lie listlessly in bed, all the while staring into nothingness.  

It was on one such day in early February that Trowa, who was almost at wit's end, took decisive action.  After clearing another tray of untouched food, he returned to dad's side and stared out at the waves on the beach.  He shared with dad the story of his girl, his love, and how he'd wrestled with the pain and loneliness after her loss.  He spoke of anger, sadness and fear.  He spoke of the compassion shared by his sister and friends, of the consoling words and actions that allowed him to overcome his despair.  All throughout dad said nothing and Trowa feared that he hadn't reached him, feared that there was no hope.  He feared that he too had failed.  Finally after a long silence dad responded, but it was no more than what the tall man had heard over and over during his stay.  She was gone and it hurt too much to go on.

Trowa tried for a while to reason with him, to show him that there was much still worth living for, that he had friends who would help him through, and a daughter who needed him too.  But frustration grew with every despondent response and eventually it turned to anger.  In a moment of desperation Trowa lashed out with the one thing that would cut his friend to the core.  He reminded dad that by leaving all those years ago he'd done far worse than dying.  Unlike mom, dad had chosen to leave us behind, never looking back and never explaining why.  He berated dad for giving up and asked how he dared 'lay down and die' when mom had found the strength to continue.  The frustration that had turned to anger was back and it brought hurt and disgust upon its return.  'You chose to hurt them and they chose to rise above it and eventually to forgive you.  How could you be so selfish, how could you leave Helena again when she's just lost her mother. You owe it to both of them to be strong, but most of all you owe it to Relena.  She believed in you Heero, don't let her down now.'  With those final words to my father he turned and left the house.   It was late at night when Trowa finally returned and found that my dad had gone back to his room.  He went to bed that night believing that it was a hopeless cause.  Fortunately he was wrong.

Soon after that day the healing began.  Through their shared pain Trowa helped dad come to terms with the mom's death, together they achieved a sense peace and stability.  It was towards the end of February that they decided to continue living together, to support each other in the years to come.  Their friendship and their shared pasts would be the pivot to their futures.

I still see dad every few months in person, he comes to visit, sometimes by himself, but mostly accompanied by Trowa.  They run a boat charter when it suits them – which is mostly in the summer months – but close shop whenever the mood moves them, partly because Trowa loves to travel.  I guess when you've spent most of your life moving from place to place, it's a little hard to truly settle down.  Carefree bachelors, that's what they say they are now.  Both had a single love in their lives and that person is no longer there.  They live in companionable friendship and claim they will continue to do so until they die. I hope it's many years yet, I'd hate to think that I'd lose one of them too soon.  

They remind me of those old men you see at the elderly folks homes and in those retirement communities, the kind that are never alone.  The ones whose names are always mentioned in pairs, Charlie and Rob, Joe and Tom, Gabe and Sam. The kind of men that were friends since childhood, who attended school together and played on the same teams, whose families vacationed together. They are men who double-dated on the night of their prom, grew up, married their sweethearts and moved within a mile of each other, men who then raised their own families together.  The kind that share so many common memories, of golf days and fishing trips, of fortieth birthdays and fortieth anniversaries, who always seem to break a period of silence with the words 'you remember that day we…'.  Men who have a bond that no tragedy can try and no loss could break.  Heero and Trowa.  People would refer to them as that in the years to come, their close friends already did.  My own husband no longer distinguished between the two, 'Trowa and your dad called…' , 'Where are they off to now…', 'The old men said they'd be here in a week…'.  Old men.  Barely 46 years old and we consider them old men.  Surely the life they've led is full enough to warrant the statement; many men much older than them have hardly accomplished a portion of what they have.

I miss mom terribly, especially at times like these, and I know dad does too.  He truly regrets the years he wasted being away from her; but it's too late to change that, so it serves no purpose dwelling on it.  At least they got to spend the last few years of her life together. They were beautiful together, he was so gentle with her, I could see why she never stopped loving him.  It's so sad that she never got a chance to meet her grandchildren, so sad that that her time was cut short.  But that's life and so we move on.

Heero, my son Heero Maxwell, has a lot of my mom in him.  I'm sure Michael's genes helped bring out the blond in him but the blue eyes are like hers, not at all like mine or Michael's.  His personality is very much like I've heard mom described in her youth.  At the ripe old age of two-and-a-half he has been described as gentle, unassuming, idealistic, caring, naïve; but also headstrong, stubborn and tenacious as a junkyard dog.  Apparently the Peacecrafts have very strong personality genes as these things can also be said of my uncle and my cousins.  

It makes me wonder how our second child will turn out.  Leila Relena Faroq, who is to be named after Michael's aunt and my mother, is due any day now.  It is because of her that I have found myself reading over both mine and my mother's old journals and starting a new one for myself.  My children will not know their maternal grandmother and that is a true shame.  She was a strong and worthwhile person.  She instilled in me a great sense of self-reliance, of independence, she taught me what strength of character is.  I want my daughter to know that which I learned from my mother.  I want her to understand that no matter how 'easy' someone's life might seem or how happy they might be, that there is still room for tragedy and pain.  How you live your life has a lot to do with how you handle tragedy or loss.  

Some people never overcome their losses, some become stronger for it.

~ End Epilogue. End journey. ~

That's it ladies & gentlemen, this story has now officially come to an end.  Thank you for your encouragement and support, and for sticking with me through the long quiet periods with no updates.  

Special thanks again go to DruidKeep, my first and most enthusiastic reviewer, 'My Reader'.  Thanks again for being honest in your comments (on this and other things), for keeping me in line, and for always climbing out of the woodwork to nudge me back into action.  Stay in touch, my friend.

Special thanks to you too, Faya, for reading these things over for me, for sitting in the kitchen with me and talking through the sticky plot points, and for leaving me little notes *in* my computer. A lot of her comes from you, but you're much cooler than Helena!

Take care everybody, ja ne!

BadMomma.


End file.
